Rise of the Mongols - v0.4 beta released. (Nov 20, 2015)

[BiteNibbleChomp]

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Nov 20, 2015: v0.4 https://www.mediafire.com/?9tmdmcmns5zd400

Adds last 3 China missions + Korea.

Likely to require v1.24


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June 24, 2015: v0.3 released https://www.mediafire.com/?ax1daewfpnvykau

Changelist from 0.2:

- Added Kara-Khitai, Khwarezmia, Punjab and Throne Claims scenarios
- Middle Eastern and Indian regions units added.

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Development for a new mod is underway, but I'm not telling you what exactly it is yet. Instead, I provide you with this picture, which is of one of the earlier maps. See if you can figure it out.

Map1.JPG (47.73 KiB) Viewed 16353 times

I will gradually provide clues until someone gets it, and then will use this thread for the actual development. And by the way, it is not another WWI mod (or I would have posted it on the WWI thread).

There is going to be a complete revamp of the nation list, flags and even CITY GRAPHICS! Basically I hope to make it the most game-changing mod ever (WWI came close, but still has a heap of WW2 stuff in it)

- BNC (People who I've already told, don't post the answer, as it will ruin the fun)

[ThvN]

I'll play along: I haven't been told anything, as usual... (as a mod, it's my job to be the last to know, as long as it is accurate info), and the first two conflicts that bubbled up into my head were:

1. Crimean War

2. Russian Civil War (were the Zaamurets icon would actually be correct)

So, how far off am I?

[BiteNibbleChomp]

You're right that it isn't anything to do with the World Wars, in fact right out of the 20th century.

However, the picture doesn't have anything to do with Russia, though Russia has a part in the mod.

- BNC

[ducesettutamen]

Well the map is of the Yellow Sea and surrounding lands. The trench lines appear to indicate the approximate extent of Manchukuo, however you hinted its not in the 20th century.

Instead I might guess those trench lines represent the Willow Palisade which would indicate the map is post 1650.

Only 2 major conflicts happened in the area of the map from the mid 17th-19th centuries. The 2nd Opium War, which would never require a map so large. or...


The campaign is the First Sino-Japanese War.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

You got the fact that the map is of northern China correct, however the campaigns you suggested are wrong.

Also, who said anything about trenches? The terrain label is 'fortification' and the graphics will be needing a great revamp before release. At this stage I'm still using the vanilla icons, which will explain Beijing looking like a 1900s European city.

I was thinking that someone would hint at the Sino-Jap wars at some stage.

Anyway, I'm working on another map which might make it quite a bit easier to figure out (or it might just confuse you even more )

- BNC

[ducesettutamen]

Well then if we are talking a long continuous "fortification" then we could go back another 1000 years in history. Now I was so focused on the terrain tiles of the north that I failed to note the south.

With the absence of the Grand Canal that would put the map as pre 1270. So I'm guessing you're really reaching into the never before done and doing a campaign on the expansion of the Mongol Empire and thats how the Russians factor into the campaign.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Well, I didn't think anyone would get it that quickly! Yes, I'm doing a Mongol Campaign (the next map I was going to reveal was the Persians in 1219-21.

About 'never before done', basically all of my mods fit into that category:
- Panzer Fury - first all-Europe SP map
- War of the World - first global map
- Kaiserschlacht - first mod not set in ww2 or the cold war
- The Path to Rearmament - first 1936 start mod, first to model economics (upcoming)

- BNC

[ducesettutamen]

My only question is how exactly will you be able to pull this off. IIRC when the Mongols invaded China they assaulted with a force 100-120K strong. However over the expansion of their empire their forces became more spread out until they reached Eastern Europe utilizing Toumans 10-30k strong with estimates of only 8% being actual Mongols and the rest being local auxiliaries. To keep it near historically accurate you would need to implement a diminishing core or alter the purchasable units throughout the campaign.

[Halibutt]

Not all units of the initial force have to be in the core, don't you think?

Also, I'm thinking of hijacking this thread with some pictures pretty soon the way I did with the WWI gfx thread

[Halibutt]

As noone objects, here's some units I'm working on. Sadly, I'm not that skilled in 2D and the sprites are actually conversions of tin soldiers, 2d drawings and such. If only the game allowed for .svg icons...

Chinese archers

chinese archers.png (21.33 KiB) Viewed 16220 times

Chinese cavalry 2

chinese_cavalry_spear.png (24.48 KiB) Viewed 16220 times

Chinese cavalry

chinese_cavalry_1.png (20.98 KiB) Viewed 16220 times

[Halibutt]

And another batch of icons, this time for the Turks.

Turkish light cavalry

turkish light cavalry.png (22.59 KiB) Viewed 16219 times

Turkish mounted archer

turkish mounted archer.png (21.61 KiB) Viewed 16219 times

Turkish infantry

Turkish infantry.png (25.03 KiB) Viewed 16219 times

[BiteNibbleChomp]

My only question is how exactly will you be able to pull this off. IIRC when the Mongols invaded China they assaulted with a force 100-120K strong. However over the expansion of their empire their forces became more spread out until they reached Eastern Europe utilizing Toumans 10-30k strong with estimates of only 8% being actual Mongols and the rest being local auxiliaries. To keep it near historically accurate you would need to implement a diminishing core or alter the purchasable units throughout the campaign.

In the China scenarios, you only have a part of the army (that Beijing Map shows that you fight at Beijing, but there are other armies in China), and we could say that that is an army of ~30k.

Later on, you will take charge of whole campaigns, such as the 2nd invasion of Hungary, or the attack on Kievan Rus'.

Unit purchasing... Let me say that this won't be possible. The campaign is using Prestige as a victory condition rather than a currency.
For example:
Invasion of the Merkits, 1200 - requires 50pp to pass.
Next scenario (not yet named, but it is set in 1201 vs. the Khamags) will require you to get to 100.
Zhongdu (Beijing), 1215 might require you to get 1k pp.

If you can't take the amount of Prestige needed by the end of the scenario, then your army will desert you and then the empire fractures, which ends the game.

So, how do you build your army up then?

Your army is basically given to you at the start of the campaign, which is in 1200. Until about the time when Persia is destroyed, you will gradually get more and more Mongol units. At the end of most scenarios, you will get some equipment from the defeated nations. For example, at the end of the Korean battle, you will get a few H'wachas, which were mini rocket launchers.

Not all units of the initial force have to be in the core, don't you think?

The campaign starts in 1200, rather than 1206, so your initial force is very small, but you get large amounts of warriors in the first 4 missions, which end in 1204. By the time that you invade the Western Xia [1207], your army should be much larger.

Also, I'm thinking of hijacking this thread with some pictures pretty soon the way I did with the WWI gfx thread

I worry about that - the WWI mod gfx thread went from about 80 posts to 200 so quickly that I'm not even done adding all of the new icons yet! Maybe I need to make a Mongol GFX thread?

- BNC

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Fall of Khwarezmian Persia, 1219:

Map2.JPG (61.4 KiB) Viewed 16209 times

- BNC

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Annexation of the Kara-Khitans, 1218:

Map3.JPG (69.04 KiB) Viewed 16206 times

- BNC

[Halibutt]

I worry about that - the WWI mod gfx thread went from about 80 posts to 200 so quickly that I'm not even done adding all of the new icons yet! Maybe I need to make a Mongol GFX thread?

- BNC

It's your circus, your monkeys, as we say here, so it's your decision after all. But it's usually easier to keep track of what is happening in one thread than in three separate threads, one limited to gfx and visited by... well... barely anyone. Anyway, I'll try to add info to my posts with graphics so that they move the thread forward instead of hijacking it.

BTW, here's another batch: a Polish knight and a cavalryman, plus some Ruthenian pikemen.

BTW, it's Ruthenian, not Russian. Modern Russians tend to refer to everything that happened in Middle Ages in what later became the Russian Empire as "Russia", but actually "their" Russia (duchy of Muscovy, sometimes called the tsardom of Muscovy in modern English) was but a small fraction of the entire region known as Ruthenia back then (Rus' in Slavic languages). And there were plenty of states there both before and after the Mongol conquest: Kiev Ruthenia, Galician Ruthenia, Vladimir-Suzdal Ruthenia, Black Ruthenia, Red Ruthenia, White Ruthenia (hence Belarus) and many more. Please, bear that in mind when writing scenario descriptions and naming units in ME

Polish knight.png (25.89 KiB) Viewed 16202 times

Polish cavalry 1.png (19.85 KiB) Viewed 16202 times

Ruthenian pikemen.png (28.43 KiB) Viewed 16202 times

[Akkula]

Wow!, very impressive project!, best of luck with it!, I am looking forward to play it indeed.
And amazing icons halibutt!, can´t stop looking and love them :p

[guille1434]

Indeed, the icons and maps showed here look awesome! Good job!

[Halibutt]

Here's three more units then. English infantry from the 100 years war is definitely English, but it can be used for a variety of European armies of the time. Same case with heavy persian cavalry, most middle eastern armies of the epoch looked similar, though the horse capes were not necessarily that beautiful.

Is anyone willing to help with the icon production? I have 2D images sorted out for all units, I just don't have enough time to convert them all to game sprites.

mongol mounted archer.png (18.5 KiB) Viewed 16134 times

iranian_cavalry.png (22.81 KiB) Viewed 16134 times

English infantry.png (24.47 KiB) Viewed 16134 times

[BiteNibbleChomp]

I worry about that - the WWI mod gfx thread went from about 80 posts to 200 so quickly that I'm not even done adding all of the new icons yet! Maybe I need to make a Mongol GFX thread?

- BNC

It's your circus, your monkeys, as we say here, so it's your decision after all. But it's usually easier to keep track of what is happening in one thread than in three separate threads, one limited to gfx and visited by... well... barely anyone. Anyway, I'll try to add info to my posts with graphics so that they move the thread forward instead of hijacking it.

I have 2 proper WWI threads (normal and gfx), as well as the Grand Armoury, which isn't really a WWI thread (I made a separate one because rezaf didn't want to add my WWI units into his G.A., so I just made one so that they could all be paraded around!

Also, it's not hijacking the thread, just filling it up with awesome stuff to the point that everyone has no idea what was going on beforehand. But oh well, if that's how it goes, then so be it.

BTW, here's another batch: a Polish knight and a cavalryman, plus some Ruthenian pikemen.

BTW, it's Ruthenian, not Russian. Modern Russians tend to refer to everything that happened in Middle Ages in what later became the Russian Empire as "Russia", but actually "their" Russia (duchy of Muscovy, sometimes called the tsardom of Muscovy in modern English) was but a small fraction of the entire region known as Ruthenia back then (Rus' in Slavic languages). And there were plenty of states there both before and after the Mongol conquest: Kiev Ruthenia, Galician Ruthenia, Vladimir-Suzdal Ruthenia, Black Ruthenia, Red Ruthenia, White Ruthenia (hence Belarus) and many more. Please, bear that in mind when writing scenario descriptions and naming units in ME

a) I thought that Kiev was the duchy that became the Russian Empire that you get to destroy in my WWI mod!

b) When did the Mongols really care about the names of individual cities/kingdoms? I think that they thought more along the lines of "Hey, there's a rich and powerless city, let's go and plunder it". (I'm not trying to imply that they acted like this all the time, but in wartime they probably don't care what they attack).

c) I'm limited to about 40 nations, as any more and the game files go stupid for me, and so I've just united all the Russian kingdoms anyway. Makes life a lot easier when adding all the new units (why clone a 'Russian' unit 8 times for all the different kingdoms?), and also allows me to add cool things to destroy like Holy Rome and the Crusader states.

d) As many units will be shared among nations (Jin/Song, England/France, Poland/Hungary/Bulgaria, the 4 Mongol tribes for the tutorials), I'm not going to be naming the units 'Jin Cannons' or 'French Kinghts'. Rather, it is far simpler to just name them 'Knights' or 'Spearmen'. I'm not going to even think about briefings at this stage, as I'm still making the maps and then units for the mod.

Wow!, very impressive project!, best of luck with it!, I am looking forward to play it indeed.
And amazing icons halibutt!, can´t stop looking and love them :p

Aren't all my projects 'very impressive'? (I think I recall you writing that exact thing on my WWI mod page, which kind of answers my question anyway)

Also, glad that you like the icons, as they will be the ones used in at least the first release of the thing. Ultimately, if something better shall arrive, then it will go in.

Indeed, the icons and maps showed here look awesome! Good job!

Any maps (or even scenarios!) you would like to see next?

Here's three more units then. English infantry from the 100 years war is definitely English, but it can be used for a variety of European armies of the time. Same case with heavy persian cavalry, most middle eastern armies of the epoch looked similar, though the horse capes were not necessarily that beautiful.

Is anyone willing to help with the icon production? I have 2D images sorted out for all units, I just don't have enough time to convert them all to game sprites.

Amazing units as usual! I'm combining the units that get uploaded into about 7 types, so that I don't have to find units for each individual nation (and what is the difference between a Kerait horseman and a Merkit horseman?)

- Arabs
- China + Vietnam
- Eastern Europe (Russia, Poland, Hungary)
- Byzantine Empire
- Japan + Korea (though Korea doesn't get the Samurai)
- Mongols
- Persia + India
- Western Europe (and Crusader States in the Holy Land)

- BNC

[rezaf]

Getting appropriate GFX that don't look like cobbled together from all over the place will be quite the challenge for a "total modification" like that.
I've been slowly plugging away at one for years and have like 200 units but with a gazillion still to go, so I don't know if I'll ever be able to finish it. Hopefully you'll fare better - I wish you best of luck.
Ambitious effort in any event.
_____
rezaf