Greetings! Again, my apologies for any absence of new pics or any news related to the mod, as many of you know, this mod is just a single-man project and so far, the only direct help I got was to fix my rookie mistakes that I was doing when I started adding companions. Outside of all of this, here's a list of the news, instead of making up for a huge text:
- There's been progress in the mod, but in another way. I have dedicated most of the time in gathering resources by getting new OSPs and preparing them rather than adding newly content. This is good because this means if I dedicate time in building up the mod, it won't have any pause in case there's content missing and I have to search for it. But soon enough, I will make some changes, specially on the already stablished new companions, in which they're gonna get a small balance, because some, principally Shorzava is a bit too op.
- About OSPs, the majority are already ready for preparation, the only thing missing are Viking/Norse helmets, so in terms of content (weapons, armours, horses, other purchasable objects, etc) are ready.
- About any release dates for an alpha build is about to come soon; because I'm a single man working in this project, this mod's progress can be paused for many reasons, from studies to illness or just plain lazyness; but still, is nothing extremly bad happens to me, probably the mod's alpha build will be ready and available to everybody in between march to april, if, of course, there's not a justified big delay in between. Now let's talk about the content of the Alpha build: It will be fairly basic, it won't have any big changes in the map, things like modified tournmanets or more populated taverns won't be there either, but they'll surely appear either in the BETA or the final build of the mod. Most factions will be there and ready with the exceptions of the Zadians, who, of course, having their faction being outside of the vanilla borders, would be impossible to implement without modding the map. So, the alpha build will have: the new companions, most weapons and gear, and most of the new factions and probably some changed reward system. The Alpha Build will be availalbe for download in here (Moddb page), Mediafire, TaleWorlds forum and Steam Workshop.
- About the Wiki, despite there's not been any new content added lately, the articles already stablished will have a change, a big one; the lore department convolutes many articles regarding to factions, so, I will rewrite them soon and make it shorter and simpler, I guess very few people would be interested in read 30 lines of made-up calradic lore that copies real life history.
- About the overall mod, I have the sad news that the Geroians, one of the factions whom were going to live in the south-east of the rhodok territory, are meeting the same fate as the Vlaadians, they're gonna get cut from the mod. Compared to the Vlaadians, who were cut because, aesthetically they wouldn't shine up a lot, the Geroians by the other hand, were unique, resembling an Italo-Norman style inspired by the norman kingdom of Sicily in the XI-XII centuries; however, the reason why they got cut off is because I couldn't make them unique in the troop tree department. The Geroians, after making many drafts of how their troops were going to be, just they couldn't stop looking like a norman reskin of either the Swadians, Rhodoks, Antolians or Sarranids. The Geroians won't dissapear, but their land will be part of Antolia, so Geroia will just become a part of it.
- Well, last, but not least, there's probably going to be some changes in regarding the troop trees. After playing some Medieval Conquests and Europe 1200, idea of making TWO troop trees for each faction, one available for cities and the other in villages, the idea to implementing a mechanic like that has grabbed my curiosity. I have been thinking to make the Elite troops only available to contract in cities while the rest of the troops only to be ready for contract in the villages, making the elite troops harder to be available. But still, this remains in paper, in practice, it needs to be seen if it will work or if this change will be, of course, approved by all of you.
- Almost forgot, there's some news related to the OST (Soundtrack). Unfortunately, the OST that I have been posting lately WON'T be part of the physical mod, the reason is simple, some of the tracks are under protection of Copyright, and the last thing I want is to get in trouble because of this. So, the mod will have the vanilla OST, but do not worry everyone, the "OST" I had planning will be available as a spotify playlist, in there, you can all listen to it either via web or the spotify program. There's gonna be two OST playlists: a Medieval one with authentic medieval music and folk music; and a Metal one, for the ones who prefer some epic, ambiental or just more brutal type of music for brackground; the medieval playlist will include tunes mostly from Jordi Savall and other collaborators of his; while the metal playlist will include tunes from bands as Turisas, Dalriada, Skyclad, Týr, Myrath, SuidAkrA, Gloryhammer, etc. The link to the playlists will be avaible at the release of the alpha.
So, this is everything I had to say so far, I hope y'all haven't lost fate in this yet, because is still on the move. Thanks for your attemption.
