Screenshots / Empires' Maps Thread

[Alavaria]

Finally, have unified 198 of the map's 199 settlements. Downed 3 Mongol stacks (bribed one after its general separated from it, fought 2 in a single bridge battle and destroyed them at one go) so 6 left.

But I wonder if taking the last settlement just wins the game and kicks you back to the main menu...

[Jurand of Cracow]

I'd assume nothing will happen. Just check it for us.

[stevietheconquer]

i always wanted to conquer all the 199 settlements,but after almost 10 years of playing(lol) am still trying so,congratulations for you!

[Alavaria]

After defeating 9* Mongol armies, the Pisans have unified the land. And now peace until the Timurids** arrive...

I only did this for the Roma Surrectum mod on RTW before, so SSHIP in M2TW is the #2 ever. Excellent ride (though I largely used the same units throughout, it was a fast Early Era campaign so yeah)

*1Bribed, 2 Autoresolved, 4 fought 1v1 and 2 fought 2v1 (bridge)
**Timurids not included

[j.a.luna]

Congratulations Alavaria! You are a f... machine!!! Haha
I hope that for next version of sship you play and upload your empire with other more ''unique'' factions as romans, rus, norwegians, selyuks, castilians,mongols or cumans...


*** a little question, what is the yellow star that show in the campaign minimap?

[Jurand of Cracow]

Ok, that's nice, congratulations!

[Alavaria]

a little question, what is the yellow star that show in the campaign minimap?

The Mongols are a horde faction, so if you take their last settlement "A people takes flight" and they will horde up again I guess.

But if you have all settlements the game just ends.

other more ''unique'' factions as romans, rus, norwegians, selyuks, castilians,mongols or cumans...

Depends on what their rosters look like, but the set of factions with some of the cool (very late) units isn't all that great.

Actually Pisa has an ideal mix (ie: spearwall-polearm and non-spearwall-polearm (both halberds).

Jerusalem (Crusader States) seems to have the best mix of fun stuff, though distributed over a very very long time scale (I think some things only arrive after the campaign's time limit, which is a bit sticky)

[Dekhatres]

at the start of every campaign "I am going to conquer all the world, for real this time"


after conquering half europe "What am i doing with my life"

[Pherion]

I'm leaving this here as my first and last empire in SSHIP. While I enjoyed the mod at first, the more I progressed the more I hated it. It's very annoying to expand with this mod, cities taking forever to convert, everyone having a fit because the governor is not a perfect saint, the pope being an annoying emo and as soon as I'm excommunicated, suddenly my citizens have an excuse to burn my towns to the ground. All armies are having a cavalry orgy or something, because all armies are composed of 85% cavalry, the rest are knights or archers.

Some of you might like this, and yes it might be super realistic and historical and blah, but I want an immersive game experience, and immersive to me doesn't mean more realism or historical accuracy, but more gameplay features that allows me to do more things. I wish there was a mod that allowed me to change religion on any faction I so chose, for example.

I'm going back to good ol Stainless Steel 6.4. After all these years, it's still the only medieval era mod I play.

[Lifthrasir]

Your choice and I respect it. However, I don't think that SS offers more immersion that SSHIP

[Pherion]

Your choice and I respect it. However, I don't think that SS offers more immersion that SSHIP

To me it does, because if for example, I'm playing as catholic faction, I can tell the Pope to screw himself and never do anything he says, ignore he's threats, refuse to build churches or recruit priests and I can still manage my empire and keep conquering. To me this is immersive, because then I'm changing this faction's religion(to a certain extent). That is the stuff I want! The ability to completely rewrite history, no matter how wacky it may be. I once managed to have a faction that was mostly heretic! xD

And how I can face the might of all of Europe by getting excommunicated, but not having my citizens turn their backs on me for whatever reason and play the role of an Evil Invader. I love that!

[Lifthrasir]

As far as I remember, it works that way also in SS. I think the main difference in that case is probably the reputation you get in SSHIP, which is very often bad actually.

[Pherion]

Maybe. But I tried doing that now with Portugal in SSHIP and it was simply not as enjoyable or fun as it is in SS6.4.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I think this Portugues empire is a pretty one. And 319 turns is a lot. Congratulations!

It's very annoying to expand with this mod, cities taking forever to convert, everyone having a fit because the governor is not a perfect saint, the pope being an annoying emo and as soon as I'm excommunicated, suddenly my citizens have an excuse to burn my towns to the ground. All armies are having a cavalry orgy or something, because all armies are composed of 85% cavalry, the rest are knights or archers.

That's great to hear that cities are taking forever to convert! For me it's still too fast, taking historical standards into account. I've never had all-cavalry armies. It's usually 20-30%, including knights. And cavalry is stronger in SS6.4, I believe.
Reputation is something that worries me as well.

immersive to me doesn't mean more realism or historical accuracy, but more gameplay features that allows me to do more things. I wish there was a mod that allowed me to change religion on any faction I so chose, for example.

As Lift said - it's up to a personal taste what does "immersive" mean. For me, it's historical accuracy. I think it would be horrible if such a change of religion would be possible, otherwise than for a pagan faction. I don't think it's possible in SS6.4 either.

playing as catholic faction, I can tell the Pope to screw himself and never do anything he says, ignore he's threats, refuse to build churches or recruit priests and I can still manage my empire and keep conquering. To me this is immersive

Why would we then have a "pope mechanism" in the game at all? Any mechanism in the game should have a real consequence for the gameplay (as the pope has in the SSHIP), otherwise, it's unnecessary and should be dropped. Again, I don't think it's different than in the SS6.4.

[Pherion]

Cities taking so long to convert is good? O.o We are very different players.
I had a HRE empire in SS6.4 that destroyed the papal states, conquered the whole world and there were no priests or popes or churches. Or rather there were, they spawned outside, which I created the hunt a pope sport.

And all of this was done without any of the nonsense that exists in SSHIP.

This type of changing history is what I crave! I wish it was possible to destroy all religion or create your very own, design your own units, etc. Atleast you can change the settlement names when you conquer them. This is what I love! Not history or realism or any of that stuff.

I want to grab a moment in history and change it drastically! That's the fun!

[Lifthrasir]

I think that there's a different interpretation of "changing history" between you and us. Of course SSHIP is also about changing history. Basically, we represent the "known world" at a specific date. From there, the player is basically changing the real history, something like "what if..."
Where we are different from SS is on the fact that we try to keep cities, technologies, religions, armies, economies, etc, as they were in real history. Not in their representation but rather in their mechanic. For instance, if an army was expansive at that time in real history, then it's the same in SSHIP. If a city took a century to become a large city in real history, then that's the same in SSHIP.
Then that's your own right to dislike that fact and I respect that. Any feedback (good or bad) is welcome as long it is constructive (to let us improve)
Now, if you, guys, want to continue that discussion, I suggest to do it in the General Discussion thread (a more relevant place than here).

[Pherion]

Sure, no problem. The problem I was having was simply due to the fact that some cities were never really happy. I built everything right and still they were pissed, because the governor wasn't really the best. But that was the best I could give that city, ain't my fault the game doesn't give me enough family members and generals aren't really that good. So once in a while I'd have to go an exterminate a settlement or atleast leave a full garrisson inside. The civil war mechanic is also annoying, I can't select my heirs man, ofcourse I'm going to have civil wars every 20 turns. I would turn that off entirely. And the armies...geez...fighting the moors was impossible until I started using bridges. 15 units of blakc guards and mounted christian guards?! WOOT?! You know Portugal only has spear militia right? Good thing there are bridges. I would also decrease the cost of cavalry. It's too high for small factions.

I might try it again perhaps on M/M, I played on VH/VH because that's what I take for SS6.4 but maybe in SSHIP is too crazy.

[Justinian Australis]

Ok I apologize for the rambling post but here is my current Roman campaign. Its the first time I have this on H/H after having played the Late Era campaign and then realizing it wasn't completed like the Early campaign (still was interesting enough). It's been challenging enough, as the Serbs and Hungarians have been a nuisance for a long time but the Hungarians less so (I thought they might be tougher to deal with but they tended to stick to trying to capture Nis and getting their arse kicked and then retreating back over the Danube and staying quiet for awhile). The Serbs were pesky as they kept attacking and trying to take back Raz and Skadar before the Emperor (who I have dubbed John III) finally marched in with the Balkans army. I think we had been at war for over fifty turns before I took Ragusa, went to take Vrhbosna but stopped after killing the Grand Zupan and allowing them to exist. The Turks were dealt with early, particularly when the Pope decided at Kayseri was a good place for Crusading states to pop up. I wasn't going to allow that to happen so the poor old Sultanate of Rum was ended.

The Georgians too got uppity after they had tried to take Sebasteia (perhaps threatened by the resurgent Romans?) and we were at war for a long time as I progressively pushed them, fended off epic sieges at Trapezous and Theodosiopolis before finally capturing Ani a few turns ago. Then the Turks came onto the scene via Tbilissi but after getting a grateful Georgia to accept peace (sweetened by a nice 'donation') we marched our eastern juggernaut army to Tbilissi which caused the Turks to abandon the siege. Not that I have any love for the Georgians but they are a handy buffer state against the Cumans and the Turks already have a big enough Empire so they can live without additional territories under their banner.

Enjoying the mod, I love the historical aspect and finding the diplomacy a real challenge as everyone seems to hate our guts (I have no idea what causes sudden changes in reputation, though I suppose most of it was due to my Nikephorus Phokas like handling of diplomacy early on, i.e blustering and arrogant) though not so much they want to poke us in the eye and go to war. I have spent John III's reign trying to improve our diplomatic standing with other nations to little effect but oh well, we have two strong armies ready to contest anyone who takes offence at the notion of a resurgent Roman Empire.

As an aside there have been some very interesting developments as far as positions go for other nations. France is notably stronger than how they begin the game, the HRE have expanded slightly to the east towards Hungary who have not done much at all, Poland took one of the Rus settlements and have a decent sized empire, the Rus gave the Cumans a good kicking and have confined the nomads to three provinces and are not much of a threat though they did opportunistically invade Wallachia, Novgorod control most of the northern Baltic, the Norwegians seem happy to control, well Norway plus Sweden. Little Lithuania are still little and irrelevant. Nobody seems to care too much for Venetia (three settlements) who vie with Pisa for the capture of the independent Milan. Interestingly the Pisans have a multi continental Empire that encompasses parts of northern Italy and the old provinces of Africa (Carthage and Hadrumentum).

The Aragonese have not attempted to go anywhere else, Portugal are still in Portugal. The Moors have decided to ignore the rest of the Iberian peninsula and turn their expansionist gaze towards France. They have taken Toulouse and Arles and have four sizable stacks that appear to covet Nizza. Venetia perhaps would be best to ally with someone as their one stack wont last long should the Moors continue eastward. The Spaniards have expanded considerably as well as they have advanced up the French coastline to Roazhon and may look as if they want to advance to the English stronghold of Rouen. England snuffed out the Alban kingdom and invaded Ireland but have done little else and now seem completely open to the resurgent Scots under William Wallace (they have next to no forces available in England)

Finally in the middle East, the Zengids were extinguished by a Papal crusading army who now control Halab (and much of Italy). The Fatimids continually battle the Crusading armies that have always been fixated on Damascus but have a problem as a modest Sicilian stack under the King of Sicily sits outside Alexandria (there is also a Lithunian Lord and a tiny Pisan stack in the region which should indicate how crazy the western armies are for throwing irritating numbers of Crusading armies all over the map. This is one thing that bugs me as they never go anywhere once the Crusade is over...a Danish army has camped on a peninsula next to Smyrna for god knows how long now). The Kingdom of Jerusalem has advanced as far as Ar-Raqqah and have put up a good fight in holding onto Antioch until we are ready to take it back . The Abbasids haven't done much but are currently sniffing around Edessa.

I cant wait to see what the rest of this campaign throws up.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Jurand of Cracow]

Hi Justinian,
this is a very interesting stuff! Can you also post a (bigger) mini map with fog-of-war lifted? And perhaps a graph with the number of territories owned by the factions?
JoC

[Justinian Australis]

Thanks Jurand, here is the minimap. I couldn't get it bigger than this as I do not have any photo editing programs but it should be clear enough.



I don't have a chart however the provinces numbers read as such:
Romans 26/HRE 15/ England 9/Norway 5/Scotland 2/Denmark 5/Novgorod 6/Lithuania 2/Poland 9/Kievan Rus 13/Cumans 5/Georgia 3/Seljuks 14/Abassids 5/KoJ 6/Fatimids 7/Papal States 7/Pisa 5/Venetia 3/Sicily 2/France 10/Aragonese 3/Portugal 1/Moors 15/Castille 8 plus four independent states (Austria, Lombardy, Bavaria and Mecca)