Dawn of Conquest Total War v1.3 (28 Dec 2017)

[G|I|Sandy]

After two years of development, I finally present to you Dawn of Conquest Total War! No previews, no promises... full release right now!

Dawn of Conquest is a complete overhaul of the original Medieval II Total War. It was inspired by the classic mod Deus lo Vult (Battle Balance). The modding philosophy is "history inspired gameplay". In other words gameplay > history. The first release focuses on Western Europe - the conflict between England and France known as the 100 Years War and the Reconquista on Iberian peninsula. The mod is essentially a sandbox campaign with an improved AI and some basic but important scripts (i.e. gameplay-related). The key events are the Black Death plague that affects all of Europe in 1347-1350 and the discovery of gunpowder, which unlocks simple artillery.

SOME FACTS

• Start date 1330
• 10 factions: K. of England, K. of Scotland, K. of France, County of Flanders, Duchy of Burgundy, Crown of Castile, Crown of Aragon, K. of Navarre, K. of Portugal and Emirate of Granada. Central Europe and Italy to come soon in 2.0!
• 4 Turns per year. Do not rush. Take your time to develop your generals, its worth it!
• New campaign map (~50 settlements)
• New stratmap textures and reworked models
• New UI elements
• Reworked recruitment system. Castles = Military/Feudal centres; Cities = financial/income settelements. Conquer and develop accordingly. Many AOR troops available to anyone who conquers their settlements. Full list: Wales, Ireland, Normandy, Brittany, Gascony, Northern Africa.
• Balanced Campaign and Battlefield experience.
• Tested up to 100 turns, no crashes.

Most importantly, it is complete and playable! Minimum scripting, turns are fast. The campaign will be slower than vanilla in terms of expansion and events. You will know what I mean, if you played Deus lo Vult/BB. The real fun starts around turn 30-40, when most of the rebel territories are conquered and factions start to war with one another. Also note that campaign map difficulty matters (at the level of script)! Personal suggestion to play on "Medium/Medium". You will have less cash and surrounded by strong enemies at higher difficulty levels. On very hard AI gets ridiculous hardcoded bonuses: campaign map - population growth, battle map - troop morale.

There will be hotfixes and patches as needed and the work is continuing to expand the map Eastward to include German, Nordic and Italian factions in the near future. There are probably some bugs lurking around. Remember this is a one-man mod, so be patient. In the meantime, please provide feedback and report crashes (attach log.txt). Most critically, I am interested in the overall feel of the AI and campaign, preferably after 100 turns.

SCREENSHOTS

MECHANICS & FEATURES

I will keep updating this section... Recruitment System There are three types of recruitment zones for any faction: 1) Own historical territories: Feudal Knights and faction-specific units (e.g. Billmen for England and Voulgiers for France etc.) 2) Neutral territories ("small" factions): Welsh longbowmen, Galloglaigh, Breton MAA, Berber Spearmen etc. Full list of such zones: Wales, Ireland, Brittany, Normandy, Gascony, Calatrava and Africa) 3) Enemy territories ("big" playable factions): limited recruitment (no knigths and no faction-specific units). Generic units such as spearmen and crossbowmen are available. New Traits Ruler 1-5 (for faction leaders), Governor 1-10 and General 1-10. Early levels have some negative effects, but become increasingly useful as you level up. Level up Governor by governing wisely (with highest possible tax and happy population) and building. Fight battles (wins are best, losses are ok too) to level up General trait. Ruler trait is attained by engaging in successful diplomacy, staying close to your capital, performing successful spying and assassination missions, and most importantly by destroying other factions. Loyalty Generals are more likely to betray. Be careful who you entrust your armies to. Try to get "Feels Appreciated" and similar Loyalty boosting traits by assigning them to important settlements and keeping them busy. Idle generals are more likely to rebel. Each faction now has lordship titles that grant loyalty. Give them to your entrusted generals to keep them loyal to you. Conquer others to gain more titles for your generals. Guilds Guilds have been reworked to be more useful. Only one guild per settlement. Only one Tier 3 guild building for each guild. Some guilds offer missions, completing these missions increases reputation with the guilds allowing quicker upgrade to the next tier. City guilds: - Secret Police Guild (combined previous spy and assassins guilds). Grants law bonus and allows training of better spies and assassins. Tier 3 grants faction-wide law bonus. Build brotherls and inns, recruit spies and assassins, perform spying and assassinations, have a governor with high dread (>4). - Masons Guild. Grants construction discount (all buildings, not just stone). Tier 3 grants faction-wide bonus. Build stone buildings to get this guild. - Theologians Guild. Grants religion conversion and happiness bonus. Tier 3 grants faction-wide bonuses. Build churches, recruit priests, denounce heretics or have a governor with high piety (>5) to get this guild. - Merchants Guild. Grants trade bonuses and increases number of merchants by 1. Trains better merchants. Tier 3 grants faction-wide increase in trade. Build markets, ports and banks, recruit merchants, make trade agreements and have high income (>5000 per turn) to get this guild. - Alchemists Guild. Grants trade and gunpowder unit attack bonuses, but causes decrease in happiness and religious conversion. Tier 3 grants faction-wide gunpowder unit attack bonuses. Build gunsmiths and alchemists lab, recruit gunpowder units to get this guild. Castle guilds: - Swordsmiths Guild. Grants training cost reductions, weapon upgrades, troop morale and experience. Tier 3 grants faction-wide weapon upgrades. Train melee infantry and cavalry, have a general with high general trait (>4) to get this guild. - St. Johns Chapter House. Available to Northern European factions. Grants population health bonus and increases the replenishment rate of all knights. Tier 3 provides faction-wide bonuses. Build chapels, recruit knights, have a general with high chivalry (>4) in the castle or be neighbour with or attack a muslim faction to get this guild. - Knights of Santiago Chapter House. Available to Southern European factions. Grants law, happiness and religion bonuses, and increases the replenishment rate of all knights. Tier 3 provides faction-wide bonuses. Build chapels, recruit knights or have a general with a high chivalry (>4) in the castle to get this guild. - Archery Guild. Available to England only. Grants archer experience and replenishment rate bonuses. Tier 3 grants faction-wide bonuses. Build archery ranges and train archers to get this guild. City/Castle guilds: - Explorers Guild. Can be built in cities and castles. Grants trade bonuses, ship experience, discounts and replenishment bonuses. Tier 3 grants faction-wide bonuses. Build ports and train merchants, and have fleets far away from the capital to get this guild.

DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION

1.3 Full (.exe installer): MODDB | MEGA | MEDIAFIRE

1.31 Patch (.rar): MODDB | MEGA | MEDIAFIRE

1.3 Full (.rar): MEGA | MEDIAFIRE

Full version installation: Simply run the installer and install into "...\Medieval II Total War\mods\DoCv1.3" folder. Run from the desktop shortcut. For the .rar version, simply unpack into "...\Medieval II Total War\mods" folder. Run from the Dawn of Conquest.exe. or DoC.bat.

Patch installation: Simply unpack the files into the mod folder.

For Steam users (by Used2BRoz):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1) Add a new "DoC" folder to your "Medieval II total war/mods" folder under steamapps or wherever it is.
2) Make a copy of the "medieval2.exe" and rename it to "kingdoms.exe".
3) Finally, run the DoC installer and point the installer to the new DoC folder. Check if the mod works.
4) Apply latest patch

RECOMMENDED SETTINGS

- Medium Campaign/Very Hard Battles
- Huge armies
- No battle time limit (for better AI performance in battles)

YOUTUBE

An aggressive campaign by Zardar playing as Kingdom of France on VH/VH: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...hFAyhL0aJ7Msx0

DISCORD

Questions, for help with installation, feedback etc join our discord channel: https://discord.gg/AJrNjFA

PROMOTIONAL SIGNATURE

CHANGELOG

v1.3
- New scripts related to Hundred Years War (pop-up events requiring player choices)
- Starting loyalty decreased for all generals. Choose wisely who you entrust your armies to.
- New lordship titles (3-4 per faction, conquer others to get more!)
- Economy rebalancing (1/2 income, but also 1/2 costs)
- Removed some regions
- Minor unit stats rebalancing
- Minor building changes/rebalancing
- Bug fixes

v1.2
- Fully incorporated XCAI by xeryx. Factions are more responsive to diplomacy and rebels are more aggressive. Campaign XCAI + Taiji's battle AI for the ultimate Total War experience!
- Battlefield banners for all 10 factions
- Recolored stratmap agents to match their faction colors
- 5 barracks tiers. Larger troop variety, especially late game troops.
- Rebalanced all units
- Buildings costs and times reduced
- Reworked settlement mechanics (notably Castles generate more farm income and less trade income)
- Trusted allies now reveal their settlements
- Added unit info cards (let me know if you find missing cards)
- Added a couple new stratmap general models
- Added battlefield models for faction leaders
- Fixed a few potential bugs
- Removed the sea bridges that everyone complained about

v1.1
- Rebalanced some building and unit stats.
- Added Hand Gunners. Gunpowder discovered event should happen 140 or so turns into campaign.
- Fixed missing UI elements.
- Reworked some battlefield models.

CREDITS

• Taiji for the excellent Battle Balance mod for Deus lo Vult. His DLV BB is what inspired the creation of this mod. Also, his battlefield AI is simply the best.
• xeryx for his excellent XCAI project
• everyone, who provided feedback
• Tokus*Maximus for some UI elements he made for DLV BB
• Gigantus, for his numerous tutorials. Too many to list. And all other modders who spent their time writing tutorials on TWC.
• Lifthrasir and the SSHIP team for general advice & discussions
• Miguel_80 for his advice and materials on Spanish factions
• Ichon for historical advice & discussions
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• Excellent City & Castle Stratmap models by Agart
• Undevicesimus from DeviantArt for his faction symbols texture
• EBII team for their CUF font editing tool
• riczu74 for his stratmap models
• MapMod: Trees-Textures-Sea v1.7 by Charge

Sandy