Description

Total conversion portraying various trade republics of Italian (Venice, Ragusa, Sicily), Slavic (Novgorod) and West European (Flemish) background. In addition you can take up the Crown of the mighty tzardoms of Serbia, Russia (Moscow) and Bulgaria. Some civilizations like Byzantines, Turks, Teutons and Timurids(Persians) are only altered through the concept of regional units (which however changes their strategy a lot). Last but not least, the mod also increases the amount of useful (and/or fun as eye-candy/for scenarios) civilians: Court Ladies, Pipers (bagpipe players) and Saxon Miners (economic mercenaries).

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Tzars and Salesmen
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kolozheg
kolozheg

Nice to see some south Slavic nations, well done Ivacula! Only funny things are unique (royal) units of every civilization here which all speak other languages, only Hungarian Black Knight has horse sounds :-)
Great job and keep up the good work! It could be better to make installation (or coping files) for Forgotten Empires with more civilizations without changing generated (like New Forgotten Empires Mod v2.0 which have 5 + 5 new civs).
Your older mods were good too (with some mythology). Best regards!

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

Hvala! :)

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

About this "Only funny things are unique (royal) units of every civilization here which all speak other languages, only Hungarian Black Knight has horse sounds :-)"

Yes, as a hobby-historian I am particularly interested in how cultures are connected and therefore there is a strong emphasis on the presence and contribution of foreigners to the history of our region. Usually in the original game most mounted units did not use human speech, but if I am not mistaken the Conquistadors, though mounted, did speak, and so I felt free to give some mounted units speech as well :)

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kolozheg
kolozheg

Takođe hvala! Pozdrav i blagodarja!
I only wanted to say that these mighty empires should have their own unique units at first (Heavy cavalry) in castle (Bolyar for Bulgarians; Vlastela Vitez for Serbs; Condottiero for Republic of Venice...), and then (in forth line of castle, maybe) should be support units (Cumans, Alemannics and others). Additional units can be cannons (Culverin, Mortar) and mercenaries for Italian type civs as well. Bulgarians had enormous siege tower during the siege of Varna...
Hungarian elites - black knights don't have speeches (by default as other cavalry, like you sad), so I joked that they are the only civ here whose elite is not from others.

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

I partly agree, but other projects, some more finished than others are already putting their emphasis on the native specialities, which actually in the time-frame of my mod were less "unique". While the Boyars remained in name unique, the military of the 2nd Bulgarian Empire was pretty much a copy of the Byzantine model, save for the Cumans, who were regarded in that time the most noticable part of the army by outside observers and were the most reliably available foreign addition to the army (Even under Mongol rule the Cumans asked their new lords permission to fight for Bulgaria).

As for Serbia, a local, native speciality is the Gusar, but I made it a team bonus unit, because Gusars often entered foreign service as well and by this might have been the prototype of the later Hussars.

I should also add that every mighty empire at its peak was characterized by being multi-cultural and armies comprised of different ethnicities were a sign of its cosmopolitan character and wide ruling area.

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kolozheg
kolozheg

You're welcome. There is a lot of possibilities in further advance of this mod...
I can say that medieval Serbia had two periods:
- The prosperous age, when Serbia was Kingdom and later Tsardom (well-known for strong disciplined army and elite heavy cavalry);
- And time during particular and total Turkish occupation (when warriors preferred small battles, quick strikes and brigand tactics - there were used light cavalries Gusars or Husars).

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

My/our colleague fr_steve who originally developed the Balkan building set (many of the units are made by me, though) and is working on a larger scale Eastern European mod, will use the traditional Serbian heavy Cavalry.

I have focused on the Serbia of Stefan Dusan, which was strongly influenced by the use of German mercenaries and these eventually lead to the emergence of Serbian knights, which clad and fought like Western Knights. I wanted to display this fact, since it is a pretty unique thing among the Orthodox Slavs, neither Russians nor Bulgarians had knights. I therefore decided at least one mod project out there should display the fact that Serbs were the only Orthodox Slavs with knights. It had to be connected to the unique unit, because in Age of Empires everyone (falsely) has some type of knight.

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kolozheg
kolozheg

The most important thing about knights and chivalry is a dedication of man to pledge his life in a service of Lord, protect others, live by honour, keep faith and follow other moral rules. That makes Code of honour or the right way to react, what is a good message for everybody who plays or studies this video game.
Although not all presented civs didn't have "real Knights with Code of Chivalry and full armour" it is worth to show that is possible for every people/nation to advance in that moral direction. Every rightful hero can be applied as knight, in some way, like Marko Kraljević on his piebald horse Šarac from the background ;)
I have seen fr_steve mod Age of Voivods, looks good, but sadly it wasn't finished. Currently, I think, the mod with best building sets is Forgotten Empires v3.4 from Voobly, where every civ has unique buildings (what is not necessary for everything)...

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

Indeed the "knights" in Age of Empires are symbolic :) Keeping in that tradition, as Tzars and Salesmen aims to keep close to the original game, Boyars and Vlastelas are implied by regular knights, while unique units aim to rather represent something that stood out, apart from the knightly class that exist in one or other name across cultures. In Serbia German mercenary knights presented something unique, because the typical Western knight with heavy armor was not common among the related Bulgarian and Russian people, therefore the unique unit was chosen to be the Alemannic Guard which was Tzar Stefan Dusan's standing mercenary army of Western Knights. More regional, ethnic units are represented by the Gusars and Vlach Scouts.

Meanwhile using foreign mercenaries as unique units is not something I added to the game. The Mameluck were the Turkish mercenaries of the Saracen and their unique unit in the original game.

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kolozheg
kolozheg

It can be shown in that manner, since these civilisations are portrayed fine and versatile in a expansion pack. Tzars and Salesmen mod brings new tactics and shares the profusion of the south Europe, respectively. But, for larger scale modification (with more techs, unique-support-mercenary and regional units) civs should be more developed. I appreciate your doings, You are among rare people who started implementation of "less-known" south/eastern european heritage (people and folklore) into strategy games which always prefer western & classic civilisations!
For this mod it would be good that every civ (from these 5) has different/unique Imperial age buildings, there are a lot of available SLPs.
I can say that Saracen civ is wrong created. That name does't stand for Arabs in a good way (marauder, plunderer) and covers a lot of people's groups. It would be better, though, that game shows three (e.g.) separated states/civs (by caliphates) instead. And about Mamluks/Mamelukes... they belong to african country (Egypt/Misir) although they were multinational (slave origin)... Presented pretty much inaccurate as camelry, instead as heavy cavalry...

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

Let me add, there's a sixth history article I wrote hidden at the very end of the game's history article collection (latest update was yester-night), which deals with Balkan warfare and explains/justifies the choices.

Mostly I'd like to say it is often a question of maintaining originality. These days many projects overlap in terms of the factions they include (I think currently there's 3-5 projects released and in-progress that have Hungarians, Bulgarians and Italians) and so for a designer it is important to find unique ways to represent the faction differently than other moders would. I think this is also important for the audience. What's the point in having 6 different versions of these civs all using a slightly altered version of the same unit.

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Mahazona
Mahazona

All of the slavic people are represented with Slav civi and Magyar are Hungarians in FE.

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

Exactly why this will remain an alternative expansion, possibly starting its own line of additive expansions... if I get that far.

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kolozheg
kolozheg

Well, the Slavs are a large people's group and they were changed into nations, just like Germanics (German, English, Norse) and Celts (Scots, French (Gauls), Wallonia in Belgium). So, the presented Slavs in FE are Russians (east group) by speech, architecture, etc. While the Poles (west) and Serbs (south Slavs - Bulgarians, Croats) were not represented. They can, also, be fun to play...

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Mahazona
Mahazona

The original game was about representative civics not regional or accurate. For a more in-depth and accurate mod age of chivalry would be best suited.

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Exe20
Exe20

Damn! Too awesome dude!

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carmen-1294
carmen-1294

I have a doubt Ivacula. If the factions of this mod, I do not know .....

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

...?

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carmen-1294
carmen-1294

Those who speak in languages (factions)

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

What about them?

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carmen-1294
carmen-1294

El de "Bohemians" "Ruthenians" "Dalmatians" "Flemish" etc...

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

But what is the Doubt about?

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carmen-1294
carmen-1294

Nothing

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Mahazona
Mahazona

You really should put up more pics to get the recognition this mod deserves.

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FerMaxi
FerMaxi

Hi Ivacula, I'm sorry, I don't understand.
Is this a new version uploaded in 2020, or is it the old version?

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Ivacula Author
Ivacula

The download should include a document specifying which version you have downloaded :)

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