4.2 Suggestions

[whhyy]

Hi KK, I was thinking. Maybe you could replace Egypts Arab Cavalry units with Saracens.

And yes, I just saw Kingdom of Heaven for the first time .

[Hounf of Culan]

I may be wrong, but to my knowledge "saracen" was a term loosely thrown around by crusading Europeans that pretty much meant any muslim guy I fight over here.

[Caesar Clivus]

I may be wrong, but to my knowledge "saracen" was a term loosely thrown around by crusading Europeans that pretty much meant any muslim guy I fight over here.

Pretty much.

[whhyy]

Bugger.. I hate Arab Cavalry.. They're just so bland.

[Quark]

A suggestion:

Given the current movement rates change the <movement_points_modifier float="2.0"/> value in the descr_campaign_db file to speed up crusades. May also want to reduce the dessertion rate as well.

[King Xiao]

Any chance of Military order being able to have specialised archer, eg, Templar Archers. Its annyoing when you hold Jerusalem and all you can get in crossbows and archer militia.

[firekiller]

then pick the catles who are nekst to jeruzlem 2

[Marine Hoplite]

My $.02, just a couple of suggestions

• "Dismounted" troops shold have the same campaign movement rates as mounted troops. Afterall, they did "ride to the battle" Of course they should have upkeep costs to reflect maintaining the horse as well.
• don't know if this is doable or not, but lanced cavalry (IE: Knights) should only be able to use the devastating lance charge once, then go to their secondary weapon. Afer the first charge all of the lances would be broken or have frenchmen stuck on them.

[Firebat11]

Although I understand the need to start the build tree at the beginning, I find it a tad incorrect historically.

1) Building Roads in most of Western Europe wouldn't really be needed, because of the old Roman roads (I can understand building new ones though).

2) I don't like that the unit tech tree is so limited early on. For me, it's 1160, and now I'm finally able to recruit dismounted Feudal knights. I think the reason that the early era is so boring is because all the "cool" and unique units for most factions are only available in the high and late eras. I think that you should be able to recruit Mailed Knights right from the start (Since they were being used for centuries, example: Battle of Tours). This is a problem with Vanilla too. Although KK has added some earlier era units (which helps, trust me). It still feels like armies of Spear militia/seargeant spearmen early on.

Where are all the halberdiers (other then the militia ones), the flails, the warhammers (other then the 1 venetian unit). The extreme variety that made up medieval weapons. This is by no means KK's fault, as Vanillla has absolutely no variey what so ever. But adding in these in would be great.

3) The thing that bothers me most is that in big older cities (like Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Paris? etc.) where there was mass urbanization for centuries are not developed like they should be. Rome doesn't even have a cathedral.

Thanks,

[Marine Hoplite]

Also, another thing that's always bothered me. Assasinations of characters inside your own regions should be like 75% successfull. Realisticly speaking, if you wanted a merchant or someone dead in your area, it would really just be a matter of saying "hey, seargent, grab a dozen men and go kill so and so". Your global rep might suffer, but you should be able to do it.

[ArnyBoy]

I think Scotland should have some kind of Highland Musketeer say the roughly the same as cossack I know it wouldn't be accurate but they need some kind of advantage becuase they lack in strong archers I mean the best they got is noble highland archer.

Also some kind of orthodox Knightly order. Also have some kind of hospitaller archer unit maybe crossbow? And maybe just maybe a Dismounted Tsar Guard with a two handed sword? oh and maybed some kind of plate armour upgrade for Highland Nobles??

[Marine Hoplite]

I think Scotland should have some kind of Highland Musketeer say the roughly the same as cossack I know it wouldn't be accurate but they need some kind of advantage becuase they lack in strong archers I mean the best they got is noble highland archer.

Historically speaking they did have longbowmen. They just were'nt up to the standard as englands archers. A scottish archer unit maybe somewhere between a english longbowmen and a yeoman archer?

[amok]

hi, it would be very nice if you could

1. add teutonic odrer as a seperate faction ( don´t know if it was sad allready) crusade against the pagas in the east is a deam scenario.
2. more new units how about some knights with hammers or two swords.
3. playable factions in america, e.g. indians in north and atztecs in south.
4. it would be also nice, if you could create an alliance with other factions and could comander their armies then.

but nice work allready

[delra]

1. Probably after Kingdoms
2. It's not about quantity, it's about balanced rosters, but why not. :-)
3. You can mod that yourself, but it will be a boring game as AI never goes there
4. R2TW? :-)

[ArnyBoy]

I would like to see the muslim nations with more sword units I mean all they got is Hashims I guess Moors got dismounted Christian knights but what about the other two?

[Caesar Clivus]

I would like to see the muslim nations with more sword units I mean all they got is Hashims I guess Moors got dismounted Christian knights but what about the other two?

Ottoman Infantry use swords dont they? Once they close to melee I mean.

[Hanno the Navigator]

I don't know if there's a fundamental problem, because no mod seems to use it, but...

2 turns per year?

Contra:
Game gets LONG. But I for one like it that way. And it's a mod, so it might be optional like 0.5tpy in 4.0

Pro:
Realism.
Historically, an army could be raised in the northern HRE (i.e., modern Germany) and campaign down to Rome in one year, fighting maybe 2-3 battles or even more in that time.
Also reduces siege fests (as land movement would need to be reduced a bit - as it is, it would be a not-too-bad representation of reality)
Also makes sea movement more realistic (difference between Mediterranean and Atlantic passages - that's an internal limitation)

One major problem would exist though: sea movement is still unbalanced. But I think one can achieve a better realism with 2 turns per year still: increase sea unit movement so that the Atlantic can be crossed in 2 turns, maybe 3. That's fairly realistic, considering that IRL there was months of equipping and setting up such an expedition which does not happen in the game where it takes no time at all.

Increasing sea unit movement provides another problem: visibility at sea. I don't think the game differs between visibility at sea and on land. Ideally, sea units should have an extremely long visibility range at sea - to avoid a kind of "teleporting" effect, when fleets suddenly pop up from nowhere - but a limited visibility on land - to avoid creating a super-mobile super-spy unit.

Maybe this can be handled via the map, by creating a rim of invisible high mountains around all land areas a short distance from the shore; sea units would thus only be able to see the coastline. But this "virtual mountain range" would still need to be accessible for land units, which may be a problem (it seems that mountains that block visibility cannot be walked on). Maybe use invisible open woodland instead (the forest which units can walk through), but I don't think that would work either as the terrain heights are (IIRC) dealt with separately from the visible map, but not the land cover.

Either way, I'd like to see a 2tpy mod - the flawed seasons alone are a pain.

[ArnyBoy]

Highways=irritation playing as the greatly adored Byzantines now they got some new units and wicked skins but! I noticed that when you build highways you don't get little merchant caravans on the roads. And I love seeing hundreds of these little guys comeing in and out of your cities but now I can't see any. Is there anyway to solve this?

[Caesar Clivus]

I don't know if there's a fundamental problem, because no mod seems to use it, but...

2 turns per year?

The Long Road mod has 2 turns per year.

[Hanno the Navigator]

I don't think that cavalry charges need to be weakened.

Playing as the Kievans at M/Large, I had a Scottish crusader army (full stack) that got stuck in my lands when the crusade was won by another faction. Eventually turned rebel, so I had to deal with it. I first got rid of thew 3 or so archer units by an autocalc assault with some 6 spare generals I happened to have at that time. The eventual victory was 4 of said Generals, 4 Varangian Spearmen, 4 Varangian archers, 2 Kazaks and 2 heavy horse archers. All but the Kazaks were green units.

I set up my troops in the tried-and-true crescent formation (flanks of spearmen angled back to protect the archers) and made them stand their ground, as the Crusaders came at me. Some 8 packs of knights altogether (mailed, Crusader, Bodyguard) and the same number of Crusader Sergeants. I got 1/3 of the enemy cavalry reduced by my mounted archers while they were on the way. I had stakes put up, but they suffered little losses due to that (at first) and charged my flanks instead.

I suffered some 60% casualties, but most of that was the initial assault. Losses among spearmen were around 50%, it was the cavalry that took a major beating. But I overcame the enemy army, because their sergeants were exhausted by the time they reached me and my spearmen could just manage to hold them at bay. But it was touch and go.

In conclusion, a defensive battle at Medium difficulty against an enemy which has numerical superiority in crack troops (I had 120 heavy horse, and they had maybe 4 times that number, altogether just outnumbering my spearmen with knights alone) is definitely winnable, and on an equal footing regarding army strength it should be winnable at Hard, maybe even Very Hard, if you're in the defensive. The keyword is "combined arms". Had I not ordered my archers to stand and fight no matter what, the enemy would have crushed me.

What should be reduced is cavalry speed. A bit slower, say 15%, woud be good. It was very tough to deal with the enemy charges even using Pause (which I hate to do).

By the way, OUTSTANDING MOD! I consider this the first "solid" mod - i.e., that doesn't just tweak gameplay (as the excellent LtC) and it doesn't restrict the game to a more narrow focus (as RtJ and BC). If other mods don't get up their act, I think I'm gonna stay with SS til whenever R2TW (or whatnot) is out Version 3 was still too rough around the edges for me to enjoy, but well guys, this is it. Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!