The Road Ahead (going forward)

[Hoplite1963]

Hi All
With the release of the Age of Belisarius module I wonder if we are a bit clearer about how the development of the game is going to unfold in future, at least to cover its forward evolution in time periods to cover the ground previously broken with FOGI and FOG1(U).

Because it uses dynamic 3d models as opposed to the virtual miniatures employed in the earlier versions mentioned above FOGII expansion modules are inevitably going to have to constrain their coverage to work with an upper limit of 15 to 17 new unit modles. However as we have seen with Age of Belisarius this does not mean that new expansion modules can only have a maximum of 15 to 17 new units in them as opposed to the 86 that shipped with the base FOGII game.

Age of Belisarius does not require Legions Triumphant to play with the late Sassanid Persion lists that come with it and there are no new units in the game for Byzantine infantry units or Hun cavalry either. These are not needed however because unannounced Age of Belisarius includes a large number of the new unit models that shipped with Legions Triumphant.

Using this principle, the forward march of FOGII through the Dark Ages (sorry we now should be referring to this as the “Early Medieval Period”) may perhaps look something like this.

“Rise of Islam” = Covering the Islamic conquests in the 7th and early 8th Centuries.

“Age of Charlemagne” = Covering the later 8th and early 9th Centuries with the emphasis on Western Europe.

“Coming of the Norseman” = Late 9th and 10th Centaury largely Western European warfare with emphasis on the Viking and Anglo Saxon Wars.

“The Road to Manzikert” = Looking at later Byzantine armies and wars from the mid 8th Centaury down to 1071 and also adding some armies a bit further east like the Ghaznavids, Buyids and the great Seljuk Empire.

“Norman Conquests” = Western European armies and wars from the later 10th to the end of the 11th Centaury.

“God Wills It” = Warfare in the eastern Mediterranean in the time of the 1st Crusade.

Guess you get my drift here and how further additions could cover things all the way to the crossover to “Pike & Shot II” with the Silk Road mod keeping pace in parallel. This still leaves the question of how to cover the Pre “Immortal Fire” / “Swifter Than Eagles” armies. I have got some further ideas about this which I will cover in a separate post.

Regards
Ian

[melm]

FOG II may just follow the route of the old FOG DLC.

I suspect that the next one be "Decline and Fall".

[AlexDetrojan]

Good post Ian. If I were a betting man I'd say Pike and Shot II is already in preliminary development(though no one is going to admit to this). Also I guessing here, but the roll out here for new DLC's will not quite match the roll out for FOG I. That being said moving forward into the Medieval period will require a whole slew of new models reflecting the period differences in garb, armor, weapons and formations(developers, please say you're not going to keep using the same base models from the ancient era). As for the pre-classical period, I'd hazard that Richards team won't touch it unless all the other DLC's are profitable.
My two denarii worth.
Cheers
Alex