Introductory and Installation Readme for
The Medieval Mod IV for Total War: Viking
Expansion
v4.00
beta: Path to Glory
By Wes Whitaker Email: wesw2005@comcast.net Website: http://wes.apolyton.net/ .
This readme contains an introduction
to the mod and the Medieval Mod Pack lineage, instructions for both
installation and un-installation, guides to using the extensive charts and
documentation packaged with the mod, and descriptions of the major concepts and
improvements introduced in the mod.
Background
and History:
My aim with this mod, as it has been with
my other Medieval mods for Call-to-Power I and II, is to correct any errors
which may have slipped by the designers, even out those settings and stats
which seem unbalanced, address inadequacies in AI performance, and expand the
game in ways which I believe will increase players’ enjoyment of the game.
These modifications are the results
of over two years spent playing the game, listening to player posts in the mod
threads, and scanning the forums to see what people were saying about the game,
both good and bad. The result was thousands of individual changes and/or
additions made to the game for the first two versions of the mod, though I
still didn’t consider it to be the major overhaul that accomplished with the
Call-to-Power games.
When I
started the Proposed Unit Lineup thread for the v3.00 beta, back in June of
2003, I said that here would be the major overhaul that characterized the
previous Medieval Modification Packs. I privately wondered if that could really
be true, since I didn't have access to the types of AI and other files that
were available in the Call-to-Power games. Well, I think that version three came
very close, and that with version four I have achieved the major
overhaul that I envisioned, and have even surpassed it in some respects. This fourth edition of the Medieval Modification Pack, which
traces its history back to 1999, is as good, if not better, than any of the
previous editions, and it would never have been possible for me to come close
to a modification package of this size and quality without the support of many
fine people at Total War.org, both posters and lurkers.
Primary Goals:
My first goal with version three of the mod was to make the
game more challenging once you enter the conquest phase. This is done by
restricting the provinces where factions can produce units. The areas where
factions can recruit their units are called Homelands.
This reflects the theory that empires are built upon the native troops from
where the people originated, rather than draftees from newly conquered areas.
Practically all units are restricted to a Homeland, or else they require unique
buildings to construct.
In
order to restrict the units to certain provinces, I added close to 100 new
units to the game, and drafted more than thirty additional units from the
Viking Campaign for use in the standard campaigns. These additional units
allowed the implementation of my second goal, which involved expanding upon the
original CA design of giving each religion unique characteristics and unit
traits. My goal was to give
unique characteristics and units to each faction in the game.
A
secondary aim in the goal of faction uniqueness was to add much more historical
realism to the game, and I am very proud with what has been accomplished,
thanks mainly to the members and visitors of the TotalWar.org forums. Many of
them have contributed their knowledge to the development of the unit lineup,
and some like Dan, Russ and Mael have spent considerable time and effort
researching and passing on to me their information on this era in history. I am
continually astounded by the depth of knowledge held by many of the members of
the forums. This added realism was why I entitled version three Total
Immersion, because I believe that you could now become engrossed in the feel
and atmosphere of the Medieval period to a level I have never felt outside of
role-playing games. Well, the level of historical depth and knowledge
implemented for version four far surpasses even that of version three, to the
point of approaching a historical simulation, I believe, resulting in major
revamps of many factions. In addition to unit lineups, this included the
addition of historically accurate rulers and heroes.
Work also continued on the basic
task of improving AI performance and enhancing gameplay, and several more
concepts were developed in pursuit of these goals. Thousands of additional
changes were made to the files, including a complete overhaul of unit
priorities, and the continued development of the campaign files in order to
offer a better-balanced starting position for all factions in the game, as well
as creating strategic situations that would challenge even the most experienced
of players.
New and
expanded game concepts:
New
concept: Homelands
Homelands
generally consist of a dozen or so provinces that share the same ethnicity as a
given faction, usually encompassing the faction's territory and some
surrounding provinces. Note that two or more factions may claim the same
province, where their peoples intermingle. This can often lead to conflict
between the factions. A list of the Homelands for each faction is available in
the Homelands and Mercs page of the v4 stats spreadsheet.
For
non-Homeland provinces, you may be able to build peasants, ships,
artillery or special attack units such as spies and assassins. Specifics may be
found in the Unit notes readme.
Note: Crusading
factions, except for the Italians, have access to the units used by the Outremer States faction, in that faction’s Homeland.
New
concept: Restricted Inns
Inns can now be
built only in provinces where the Mercenary "good" is found. These
provinces will generally be in areas where ethnic Homelands overlap, and thus
conflict is more likely, or in areas where special mercenary troops are
available, such as Scotland.
Expanded
concept: Unique Bodyguards
The
discovery that the game ignores any era restrictions on bodyguard units allowed
the designation of faction-specific units for each faction. Bodyguards can be
any regular troop. The Italians, in fact, don’t even use cavalry, but a variety of
infantry instead! Bodyguards are denoted in the faction
descriptions readme by the initials “BG”.
New
concept: Standard, Compound and Mongol bows
Many
units from non-Catholic regions, primarily the open Steppes and the deserts of
the Middle East and North Africa, used bows superior to those of Feudal Europe,
and now this is properly reflected in the game.
Each
bow type comes with a different supply of arrows, which is both historically
accurate and also makes it easy to tell what type of bow a unit utilizes when
viewing the unit lists. I have written extensive descriptions of each bow type
and the arrows they used in the Unit notes readme,
including a detailed chart listing the exact differences between them, as well
as the other changes to the various projectile weapons used in the game.
New
resource: Trade Routes
These are present in certain inland,
historically correct provinces, and enable the construction of Marketplaces,
which take the place of Merchants for land-locked provinces.
Improved Maps
and New Factions:
The greatest new features for
version four, however, are the new,
greatly improved Strategic Map, and the addition of over a dozen new factions to the game.
Major
improvements:
1)
Over 100 new units for the standard campaigns, as well as the
removal units that had little effect on the game, were redundant, or were
simply a bad idea to begin with.
2)
New unit types, such as Cavalry Killers. (Please see the Unit notes readme for details.)
3)
Factions that are even more varied, yet better balanced than ever
before. For example, practically every unit in the game from version three has
been tweaked, if not completely overhauled.
4)
Major revisions of the naval and trade system, including the
addition of a new Resource, Trade Routes, necessary for building trade
structures in inland provinces.
5)
The conversion of most hybrid melee/missile units to dedicated units,
either melee or ranged units, due to the AI’s inability to use them properly.
This should help the Muslim factions significantly when they are controlled by
the AI.
6)
A way of circumventing the game’s rule which placed Artillery
units at the top of the list of AI forces. This will help AI performance
immensely in large open-field battles.
7)
The recommendations of a Medieval scholar with particular
expertise in missile warfare have resulted in the first overhaul of the
Projectile text since version one of the mod. The version one alterations
greatly improved the game, and I expect this new overhaul to enhance it just as
much over our previous file.
8)
A major expansion and improvement of the Rulers and Heroes text,
for some of the original factions as well as the new ones.
9)
More historically correct names for the Muslim factions in the
game, based upon the work of the Muslim Research team. This includes unit names
as well as royal, princess and noble names.
10)
Historically correct faction flags, for several of the original
factions as well as all of the new ones.
11)
Extensive additions to the background notes and facts regarding
all facets of the game. Many of these may be found in the MM4_Heroes and
beta_MM4 campaign texts, as well as the Historical Notes document, which is in
the Charts and Readmes folder.
Acknowledgements:
Mael Knapp,
a.k.a. Yelping Godzilla, was an invaluable
source of both ideas and historical information, and he wrote most all of the
unit descriptions created for the first three versions of the mod. Ron du Bois, a.k.a. Quokka,
was also of immense help in this area, especially in regards to the Muslim
units. I encourage you to take note of these if you have any interest
what-so-ever in history, as they are as good or better than any ever written
for the Medieval series, and those of you familiar with previous Medmods know
how high a praise this is. I have included these descriptions in the mod’s
spreadsheet alongside the new and altered unit names for the mod.
Also,
thanks go out to Lord Crazy, Barocca and the
other guys who offered help on the .org forums, and to forum members such as Gaelstrum, Red Harvest,
Pablo Sanchez and especially A_B, who offered key suggestions to solving certain
problems, and provided extensive feedback in the development of the mod.
The
new graphics, except for the Cuman, which were taken from Viking Horde’s XL mod, were made by Big
John, and they are of outstanding quality.
Viking Horde was very helpful in solving a
couple of critical technical problems with the new map.
In
addition, there were many people who helped me construct the new map and new
factions, as well as overhaul much of the existing factions. I decided to
divide the map into regions, and ask for volunteers to take over responsibility
for both the provinces and factions contained in these regions.
Russ Mitchell
handled the Balkans and Steppes, and contributed much to the overall
development of the mod.
Isopostolos (Sean Parramore) was especially helpful with the Latin States
faction, as well as info on Greece and Asia Minor.
Eastside Character (David Ruszkowski) did a fantastic job researching northern Europe, and was
instrumental in re-organizing the Poles.
Sicilian Vespers (Salvatore Marino) did a great job with the Italian Peninsula and the
splitting of the Italian faction.
PseRamesses (Patrick Ericson)
handled Scandinavia with the skill of a native, and was key in the development
of the Danes and Swedes.
cutepuppy (Roel Ghysens)
came onboard at a critical time and did a marvelous job covering all the
changes made to the provinces in Germany and France.
Youngturk (Peter Tirado)
also lent a hand with the Turks and Asia Minor.
Aymara deBois Mauri (Ricardo Teixera) not only did an incredible amount of fine work on the
Iberian Peninsula and the factions who fought over it, but he also coordinated
the work of the Muslim Research Group:
Sinan (Shahed Kazi), Cebei (Akin Unver) and Faisal
(Faisal Hussein), who completely overhauled the Muslim factions and the
lands they occupied.
These guys made extensive posts full of suggestions
and information used in developing the new map, with historical info on the
provinces, both new and old, as well as the factions who owned them and how
everything fit together to form the medieval world. They were also invaluable
in researching websites and adding their own knowledge in the creation of the
new factions. Besides posting, they sent in numerous reports to me via email
with all types of data on actual kings and heroes, along with lists of
authentic names for the princes, generals and princesses that are used, both
for the new factions and where needed to expand and improve several of the
existing factions which had not been adequately fleshed out in the original
game.
Version 2.04 of the Medmod IV is the version I made
specifically for the Viking Campaign. I have bundled it in with version four,
should you wish to try it out as well.
Installation:
For
those of you downloading the mod from my site, it is contained in self-extraction utilities.
The
Graphics
portion of the mod contains permanent mod files that you need to store
somewhere, in case you need to re-install the mod at a later date. The Graphics
portion must be installed first.
The
second utility contains the Texts portion of the mod, and it is this part
which is updated when new editions of the mod are released. The Text, or
Update, portion must be installed second, after the Graphics portion.
Finally,
there is the large version of the strategic map. This version is not needed if
you set your strategic map resolution higher
than 800x600, which may make the mod much easier to download if you have a
modem connection.
After
downloading a portion, all you need do is save it, click on it, and follow the
instructions. And please take the few seconds required to read them, as they may
save you considerable time later.
For
example, if you have installed the game to a directory other than C:\Program Files\Total War, you will need to point
the installer to your equivalent of the Medieval –
Total War folder. The second page of the installer asks you where you
want the mod files created. If you let Total War install itself to the default
directory, then you can simply click the button to proceed with installation,
since the installer is already pointed to the default directory.
Starting the game:
When
you start the game, you should see the short Medieval Mod IV video, unless you
use the skipcredits bypass. The caption “MM 4.00”
should be shown in the Main Menu, denoting
the version of the mod currently installed. In the Campaign Selection screen,
you should see new campaigns with the “MM”
prefix.
Game limitations and
discrepancies:
Caution: You cannot play the mod if you have Huge unit sizes selected, due to the over-sized
Muslim and pike units. All other sizes will work.
Faction descriptions
for new or mod-enabled factions do not show up on the Faction Selection screen,
due to a hard-coded restriction.
The
line of faction portraits do not appear during the AI turn if your
Strategic Map resolution is set to 800x600, since they will not all fit
onscreen. This has no affect on gameplay.
Conversions for non-English versions:
The
Winzip and self-extraction utility are both set to unzip the mod’s Language Localization
files into the English language folder. This
means that the mod will not work for non-English
versions of the game until you do a couple of simple things. These actions will
convert your game to all-English. I have included instructions in Step 1 for
backing up your original files.
1)
Look
in the Medieval – Total War\Loc folder, and you should see two folders. One of
them will be named Eng, and contains all of the
English language files for the English version of the game. The other folder
will be the one for your language, say Ita for
Italian, and contains all the translated, or Localized,
files for your language. This is the folder the game looks for in your version,
instead of the Eng folder. Cut the Ita folder out
and paste it somewhere as a back-up, in case you ever want to go back to the
original game. I would recommend pasting it in the Medieval
– Total War\ Charts and Readmes folder.
2)
Re-name the Eng folder to match the one for your language, which
would be Ita for Italian. This allows the game
to find the appropriate files. That’s it. ;)
Un-installing the game:
I
have set up a very simple way to un-install the mod, by pasting in the few
original files that the mod over-writes.
To
revert back to the original strategic map, you will need to Explore the game CD. The maps are contained in the Setup\Data\Textures\campmap directory. Simply copy
this directory over the matching one in the Medieval –
Total War\Textures\campmap folder. Since these maps are quite large, I
feel that this method is better than including them in an un-installation
system.
For
the rest of the mod files, look in the Medieval –
Total War\Charts and Readmes\un-install
folder, copy its contents, and paste them into the Medieval – Total War folder.
That’s all for the English version of the game.
For non-English
versions, you
will also need to paste your backed-up language folder into its original place, Medieval – Total War\Loc.
Color Scheme:
General changes, acknowledgements, folder references, readmes and file references, provinces,
trade, buildings,
Catholic, Orthodox,
Muslim, Christian,
ships, spearmen,
infantry, cavalry,
missiles, agents.
Charts and Readmes:
This
file, along with the spreadsheet and some
other interesting texts, is placed in your Charts and
Readmes folder, which is located in your Medieval
– Total War folder. If you do not have Microsoft Excel or Word, I
have uploaded viewers
for them to my webpage, which you may directly download by simply clicking on
these links: Word '97 32-bit
viewer and/or Microsoft
Excel viewer .
Presenting
the enormous additions and alterations contained in this mod, in a way that is
convenient, intuitive and sufficiently detailed, has been one of the hardest
tasks which I have faced with this version.
Your first step should be to read over the entire text of
this Readme,
then the Non-unit and Unit notes Word documents, followed by the Faction
descriptions. The Faction descriptions
document will be the one which you refer to most often. Note that you
can minimize the game by pressing either Alt-Tab or the Windows key.
This Introductory Readme lists the major game
improvements and new concepts added by the mod, along with its background and
the details of what I set out to improve and expand in the game. Also included
are the details on how to purchase, download, install and un-install it.
Finally, it describes the contents and aims of all the other documents and
spreadsheets which are included to further explain the massive changes made to
the game, in order to help you get the most enjoyment possible from what I
truly feel is a spectacular addition to an already great game.
The Non-units Word doc covers the changes made to provincial
infrastructure, attributes and ownership, and how they are reflected in the new
strategic map, with notes regarding specific points of interest. In addition,
it covers changes to the trade system, with short descriptions and explanations
where necessary. Finally, the major changes and additions to buildings are described
and detailed where necessary.
The Units notes Word doc covers a multitude of both general and
specific changes made to units and factions, including new concepts and the new
arrangements for artillery, ships and non-combat units, including the reasons
behind many of these changes. It also contains tables detailing the units which
appear in Crusades and Jihads, as well as all of
the noteworthy categories in the Projectile
stats, with both the original and new settings. In addition, I have
written extensive, detailed notes and explanations for the changes made to the
projectile stats. Here you can see the enormous forethought and reasoning which
went into these settings, down to the physics and aerodynamics used in setting
the missile values.
The Faction descriptions Word doc contains a description
of the general characteristics of every faction in the game, and a detailed list of all unique units available to each faction,
along with any additional notes of interest. There is very little about the
game that has not been touched by the mod, so once you have decided which
faction you want to play, you will want to review its entry in this file and
make any notes that you think you will need to remember. I have gradually
refined the unit descriptions to refer to standard units that any player should
be familiar with, and which have, generally speaking, not been significantly
altered by the mod. However, I have included the exact stats of these reference
units at the start of the file, and I would certainly recommend that you review
them thoroughly, in case there are some changes which you feel are significant,
and/or to brush up on your memory.
Therefore, you can study your faction’s units at the start of the
game, and make a note that, for example, a given unit is slightly weaker in
melee than a Feudal Man-at-Arms. This way, you don’t have to worry about remembering
its exact stats during the middle of a battle. However, I have found that an
even greater advantage of this system
is that you can make similar notes regarding the units you are fighting! This
will save you a lot of time and annoyance over the course of an entire game. I
have also taken much time and effort to keep unit appearances similar to known,
original units. In other words, if a unit looks like Gothic Sergeants, then
they will have similar stats to that original unit.
v4 stats Excel spreadsheet:
This file contains several pages which contain a wealth of useful
information.
The
Homelands and
Mercs page lists the specific provinces in
each faction’s homeland, including which provinces can have Inns, and therefore Mercenaries. It also
contains a complete list of all provinces, with notes on which ones have been
re-named, deleted and added to the map.
The Buildings page tells you the exact
stats of all buildings, with changes
highlighted by a yellow background.
The Unit names page contains the
descriptions for every unit in the game, and may be used in conjunction with
the Units text sheet
to find the exact values of every statistic for every unit in the game, by
matching the unit’s Game
or Screen name
with its File name,
which is the one listed in the Units text.
The
Units text
page of the v4
stats spreadsheet an exact copy of the units text file, which was
pasted into the. This file contains all relevant, and some non-relevant,
information about every unit in the game. This page should be used as the
primary source of information on the exact costs and
building requirements for all units. The
column headers for this page explain what info each column contains. You may
want to order the units by faction, column AC for example, to see a list of a
faction's unique units, or you can look up any of the other info contained in
the game's units text. This includes price (
C), upkeep (D), turns to build (E), number of men per unit (H), region
bonuses (M), general stats, including movement Speed, Charge, Attack, Defense
and Morale (W), era and provincial restrictions (T & AD), special abilities
such as armour-piercing, supporting ranks and bonuses versus cavalry units (AI
to AQ), and dismounting info (AU & AV).
What
I do when starting a game is get a notepad and pencil and construct a list of
the primary units for my faction, noting building requirements, region bonuses,
where present, and any additional data that I find relevant such as excellent
speed or armour-piercing ability. Then I refer to the Faction Descriptions doc
as needed while playing, and don’t think that I don’t need the help just
because I put the mod together. There is just too much info to keep everything in your head, and I hope that you
will have too much fun playing the
game. Enjoy!