Greetings,
It took me quite a while, yet I went through and based on culture and region, gave each and every province in the game its own unique laws, technology and power percentages for the 1066 scenario. This was because I could not face another game with the entire map having traditional law and an even quartered split power-wise. There were also a few other odd tweaks.
Basically, I wanted there to be more regional flavor, instead of everyone starting with a handaxe and chained leather.
I also adjusted a few minor things, like giving Roger of Reggio a better stewardship/intrigue and starting at war with Palermo. Or taking away the German King's Italy title, since it does not accurately represent the real level of control that the Kaiser had. It encourages a German-Northern Italian conflict more.
This was also, all done on top of jordarkelf's excellent DV improvement pack. So I hope he approves. I just couldn't imagine spending all the time adjusting the tech and power percentages on anything but the most perfect canvas, and the improvement pack is great.
There are a few caveats.
I went with the 'spirit' of the region, more than the actual hard facts. I.E, if a region was renowned for heavy foot soldiers, or fighting with archery, I gave them the law and power setup that best reflected that, nine times out of ten. If they were geared towards lots of light cavalry and light infantry, then they're probably in an traditional setup with clergy heavily favored. If they were vikings, then they're probably in an traditional setup with peasants favored for the heavy infantry. It was all done with attention to troop type maths.
I will admit that the 'West' got alot more attention than the East. Yet noone was entirely ignored and it is a work in progress.
Britain for instance, has a flavored Highlands of Scotland, flavored Lowlands, and flavored north and south of England itself, with all the Welsh, Norwegian and Irish provinces having a distinct feel as well. I also re-introduced the Norman culture, which has its own distinct feel. Out of all the setups, I probably touched the Iberian one the least, since it had already received similar treatment.
I also gave certain European cultures, like the Italian and Occitan, the respect they deserved. There was no reason why the Berbers should have chronicle writing and ballads, yet Occitania did not.
Some areas have been given power setups that they didn't really begin to experience until about 50-100 years down the road. Such as most of the Italians starting with popular law about half a century early, and the Swiss having it even earlier. Yet I feel these were all cultural tendencies and better to have em early than never.
Every province in the game was bumped up a keep level. So if it had nothing, it got a hill fort. If it had a hill fort, it got a small castle, etc. The exceptions being Rome jumped to Large, and Byzantion went to Huge. Simply because in 1066 its fortifications were far more impressive than they were later, sort've in reverse to everyone else. My last private version had them all bumped to medium, but that really punishes counts to an ridiculous degree, even if it means some Kings steamroll through areas faster than I liked.
The original version that I did for myself, for 1.5, had the Byzantine counts in eastern Anatolia start at war with the Turks. In DV, most of em already did. But I cleaned up a few who weren't for whatever reason. Though, I'm still considering whether to edit Alexios and Romanos out of the war. They seem to keep getting eaten up before they can carve their way to the throne. I think a more refined Byzantium-only event needs to be setup, that fires off more viciously and with a smaller mean time, for particularly awful rulers.
Also: In order for there to be a minimum of fuss, I did all of this in an save file, saved at day one, rather than in an conventional scenario. There really wasn't another way to go through all the powers, techs and laws at once, etc. Which means it's a pretty big file.
In 1066, the Norman cavalry charge was already infamous. Which is why they start with lances and frontal_charge. Italians get crossbows. Swabian swordsmen start with longswords. Some Germans and Scandinavians begin wth warhammers. Welsh start with longbows. There are other nods. And more will be forthcoming. Expect the English to lean towards heavy infantry and archers. Expect the Dutch and Italians to favor pike armies. Expect the Franks to have huge feudal levies, with a truly unholy amount of knights, considering all their plains and noble power. The Germans are a deliberate mishmash. The Occitan are suitably Mediterranean.
Playing in Great Britain should be especially rewarding. It has a splendid mix of traditional law, feudal law, and royal prerogative. Yorkshire levies will differ noticeably from the Cornish, so long as local rulers are kept in place that maintain the customs from before in most cases. Gwynned will make for a wonderful English King's demesne province, which will provide a ton of longbow troops. Irish levies are as useless as they typically were, with a heavy emphasis on light infantry.
The Pagans and Muslims have been given a fairly cursory treatment. The Iberian Muslims and Sicillian Muslims were given unique treatments, yet most of the Muslims remaining were given traditional law with a heavy focus on clergy, to create large armies of light cavalry and light infantry. The Pagans were heavily peasant oriented, so they were light infantry and heavy infantry. I did this because I disliked seeing a battalion of knights in all their armies from the 25-25-25-25 split. Make no mistake, it still took 5 hours to handset each of these provinces, but I'll probably go back and make more nuanced revisions. Most of the Slavs and Rus, despite having nuanced cultures, remained with handaxes and chained leather. Simply because that was actually the most realistic start for them.
There are three things you'll probably want to do:
1) Your Advances Spread event file should be edited to have a 0 added to each meantime. So 500 months becomes 5000, etc.
2) Edit your provinceimprovements file to where each improvement will give a pillage value worth 5% of its cost. With highway robber bands, thieves guild etc, each subtracting 10.
3) Play with jordarkelf's excellent break_free mod. (Man, I really owe this guy a beer sometimes. This wouldn't be possible without him. Simply because, without Jorda's excellent work, I'd have lost interest in playing CK for the nonce).
Any official release will be neatly bundled, etc. But I'm something of a newb at this, and did it for my own pleasure. I've modified almost every file in the game to tweak it in certain logical ways, but those are the most important three.
So heres the deal:
If you want to try this out, PM me with your email addy and I will gmail the monster to you, since it is a saved game complete with all the power and tech changes. If one are you very kind, perhaps you will upload it for others to get and post the link in this thread.
Any feedback would be appreciated. I am also actually considering making a scenario that is intended to last about a hundred years and have everyone start with all the techs they'll ever need based on region, then just remove the tech folders. Yet you won't find anything that intense here. In fact, my tech improvements were fairly mild. Most of it was redressing the balance with the Muslims having everything and the Euros getting chained leather, by actually adding what the Euros did have.
I'm going to class after I write this, so don't expect an immediate reply. But I'll mail this to at least the first dozen or so people who ask for it. After that, someone is gonna have to host it!
Cheers.
It took me quite a while, yet I went through and based on culture and region, gave each and every province in the game its own unique laws, technology and power percentages for the 1066 scenario. This was because I could not face another game with the entire map having traditional law and an even quartered split power-wise. There were also a few other odd tweaks.
Basically, I wanted there to be more regional flavor, instead of everyone starting with a handaxe and chained leather.
I also adjusted a few minor things, like giving Roger of Reggio a better stewardship/intrigue and starting at war with Palermo. Or taking away the German King's Italy title, since it does not accurately represent the real level of control that the Kaiser had. It encourages a German-Northern Italian conflict more.
This was also, all done on top of jordarkelf's excellent DV improvement pack. So I hope he approves. I just couldn't imagine spending all the time adjusting the tech and power percentages on anything but the most perfect canvas, and the improvement pack is great.
There are a few caveats.
I went with the 'spirit' of the region, more than the actual hard facts. I.E, if a region was renowned for heavy foot soldiers, or fighting with archery, I gave them the law and power setup that best reflected that, nine times out of ten. If they were geared towards lots of light cavalry and light infantry, then they're probably in an traditional setup with clergy heavily favored. If they were vikings, then they're probably in an traditional setup with peasants favored for the heavy infantry. It was all done with attention to troop type maths.
I will admit that the 'West' got alot more attention than the East. Yet noone was entirely ignored and it is a work in progress.
Britain for instance, has a flavored Highlands of Scotland, flavored Lowlands, and flavored north and south of England itself, with all the Welsh, Norwegian and Irish provinces having a distinct feel as well. I also re-introduced the Norman culture, which has its own distinct feel. Out of all the setups, I probably touched the Iberian one the least, since it had already received similar treatment.
I also gave certain European cultures, like the Italian and Occitan, the respect they deserved. There was no reason why the Berbers should have chronicle writing and ballads, yet Occitania did not.
Some areas have been given power setups that they didn't really begin to experience until about 50-100 years down the road. Such as most of the Italians starting with popular law about half a century early, and the Swiss having it even earlier. Yet I feel these were all cultural tendencies and better to have em early than never.
Every province in the game was bumped up a keep level. So if it had nothing, it got a hill fort. If it had a hill fort, it got a small castle, etc. The exceptions being Rome jumped to Large, and Byzantion went to Huge. Simply because in 1066 its fortifications were far more impressive than they were later, sort've in reverse to everyone else. My last private version had them all bumped to medium, but that really punishes counts to an ridiculous degree, even if it means some Kings steamroll through areas faster than I liked.
The original version that I did for myself, for 1.5, had the Byzantine counts in eastern Anatolia start at war with the Turks. In DV, most of em already did. But I cleaned up a few who weren't for whatever reason. Though, I'm still considering whether to edit Alexios and Romanos out of the war. They seem to keep getting eaten up before they can carve their way to the throne. I think a more refined Byzantium-only event needs to be setup, that fires off more viciously and with a smaller mean time, for particularly awful rulers.
Also: In order for there to be a minimum of fuss, I did all of this in an save file, saved at day one, rather than in an conventional scenario. There really wasn't another way to go through all the powers, techs and laws at once, etc. Which means it's a pretty big file.
In 1066, the Norman cavalry charge was already infamous. Which is why they start with lances and frontal_charge. Italians get crossbows. Swabian swordsmen start with longswords. Some Germans and Scandinavians begin wth warhammers. Welsh start with longbows. There are other nods. And more will be forthcoming. Expect the English to lean towards heavy infantry and archers. Expect the Dutch and Italians to favor pike armies. Expect the Franks to have huge feudal levies, with a truly unholy amount of knights, considering all their plains and noble power. The Germans are a deliberate mishmash. The Occitan are suitably Mediterranean.
Playing in Great Britain should be especially rewarding. It has a splendid mix of traditional law, feudal law, and royal prerogative. Yorkshire levies will differ noticeably from the Cornish, so long as local rulers are kept in place that maintain the customs from before in most cases. Gwynned will make for a wonderful English King's demesne province, which will provide a ton of longbow troops. Irish levies are as useless as they typically were, with a heavy emphasis on light infantry.
The Pagans and Muslims have been given a fairly cursory treatment. The Iberian Muslims and Sicillian Muslims were given unique treatments, yet most of the Muslims remaining were given traditional law with a heavy focus on clergy, to create large armies of light cavalry and light infantry. The Pagans were heavily peasant oriented, so they were light infantry and heavy infantry. I did this because I disliked seeing a battalion of knights in all their armies from the 25-25-25-25 split. Make no mistake, it still took 5 hours to handset each of these provinces, but I'll probably go back and make more nuanced revisions. Most of the Slavs and Rus, despite having nuanced cultures, remained with handaxes and chained leather. Simply because that was actually the most realistic start for them.
There are three things you'll probably want to do:
1) Your Advances Spread event file should be edited to have a 0 added to each meantime. So 500 months becomes 5000, etc.
2) Edit your provinceimprovements file to where each improvement will give a pillage value worth 5% of its cost. With highway robber bands, thieves guild etc, each subtracting 10.
3) Play with jordarkelf's excellent break_free mod. (Man, I really owe this guy a beer sometimes. This wouldn't be possible without him. Simply because, without Jorda's excellent work, I'd have lost interest in playing CK for the nonce).
Any official release will be neatly bundled, etc. But I'm something of a newb at this, and did it for my own pleasure. I've modified almost every file in the game to tweak it in certain logical ways, but those are the most important three.
So heres the deal:
If you want to try this out, PM me with your email addy and I will gmail the monster to you, since it is a saved game complete with all the power and tech changes. If one are you very kind, perhaps you will upload it for others to get and post the link in this thread.
Any feedback would be appreciated. I am also actually considering making a scenario that is intended to last about a hundred years and have everyone start with all the techs they'll ever need based on region, then just remove the tech folders. Yet you won't find anything that intense here. In fact, my tech improvements were fairly mild. Most of it was redressing the balance with the Muslims having everything and the Euros getting chained leather, by actually adding what the Euros did have.
I'm going to class after I write this, so don't expect an immediate reply. But I'll mail this to at least the first dozen or so people who ask for it. After that, someone is gonna have to host it!
Cheers.
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