Greetings! I am happy to announce that Roar of Conquest: The Late Middle Ages, overhaul of Stainless Steel 6.4, is now live and available for download! This article will be covering the differences between version 4.0 and the LMA version, not necessarily the changes between SS 6.4 and ROC; feel free to visit the mod page and look over the other articles for a better understanding of the changes made from Stainless Steel 6.4 to Roar of Conquest. Now, on to the changes!
Bug Fixes
Besides some code cleanup that normally accompanies each release, I did find and fix two rather major bugs. They are as follows:
1) Fixed bug which prevented Denmark and Norway from Recruiting Foot Men at Arms after the Full Plate Event, (year 1380-1400).
2. Fixed bug which prevented Poland from being able to recruit Polish Retainers from Citadels.
Campaign Start Date
The first major change to the campaign, (and one that was frequently requested), is that the campaign now starts at the year 1330 instead of 1220. All the historical events that occur during the campaign will fire at their proper times, and all the units that would be available after the Partial Plate Event, (year 1310-1330) are available right at the start of the campaign. It also means that you, the player, will have to wait far less time for the other units that unlock later on in the campaign. With all the new units that are available from the campaign start, along with dealing with the Black Death within the first 30 turns of the campaign, should give the start of Roar of Conquest: LMA a fun and exciting one for people to enjoy!
New Faction: Tsardom of Bulgaria!
With the release of the ROC: LMA comes a brand new faction, the Tsardom of Bulgaria! Gifted with a strong, balanced roster, Bulgaria starts of right in the middle of the action, surrounded on all sides with potential enemies and the opportunity for conquest. Rule wisely, and Bulgaria can become an empire for the history books! A roster reveal will be released within the next couple of days, so stay tuned for that!
Starting Settlements Changes
Before I dive into the details, I want to address the elephant in the room:
Dad-level jokes: Unlocked. But in all seriousness, I do want to address what some people may see as an issue, especially the hard-core history fanatics. Most factions have not had their starting regions changed, which means that most, if not all, the factions in the game do not start the campaign with the territory that would be historically accurate. In fact, several factions in the mod should not even exist during this time period. I am aware of the inaccuracies, but as I have said in past releases, my mod has always been focused on enjoyable gameplay and faction balancing over historical accuracy. I know that this choice will upset some folks, but I wanted to address the issue before being flooded with comments about such-and-such region was not actually ruled by such-and-such faction. That being said, lets get into the details!
- The Tsardom of Bulgaria starts with the regions of Sofia, Targoviste, Brasov, and Scopia.
- The Byzantine Empire now starts with the regions of Constantinople, Athens, and Adrianople.
- The Seljuk Sultanate now starts with the regions of Nicaea, Smyrna, and Dardanellia.
- The Grand Duchy of Kiev starts with the region of Oleshe.
The biggest shift you will notice is that the Byzantines now start the campaign with no territory in Asia Minor; all their previous holdings now belong to the Seljuk Sultanate. In exchange, the Byzantines now start with a strong foothold on the other side of the Mediterranean. As a whole, the Byzantines do better when under the AI's control, and tend to last longer into the campaign than they ever did before. I made this change to help provide the Bulgarians a potential threat to their southern border so that they would not snowball in campaign, (at least, not when under the AI's control).
Starting Settlement Sizes
Another major change to this release is that many settlements have have their starting settlement size increased. While I will not list every single town and castle that got upgraded, (the list would be ridiculously long), I made sure that every faction in the game now starts the campaign with at least one Fortress and one City. This change was especially useful for the smaller factions in the game, giving them a chance to get some of their better units on the field to help compete against their larger neighbors. This change was especially necessary due to the fact that the Black Death occurs very early on in the campaign, making it very hard for the factions without cities or fortresses to upgrade their settlements, while the factions that started off with with fortresses and cities had an advantage against their neighbors for nearly the first 100 turns in the campaign. Be cautious when playing as a large faction; some of those smaller neighbors you could ignore before could now pose a threat to your borders! The only faction that did not get this upgrade was the Cuman Khanate, which I felt fit their faction playstyle better. A good number of rebel settlements and garrisons were also upgraded, so keep your eyes open for that!
Unit Changes
With ROC: LMA comes some unit changes to the game. The biggest change is the new units specifically for Bulgaria, but there were a couple of other changes worth noting here. Here are the new units to the mod:
1) Bulgarian Cavalry
A tough medium cavalry, available from the start of the campaign.
2) Bulgarian Spearmen
Strong heavy spearmen, built for holding the line against enemy onslaught. Available from the campaign start.
3) Bulgarian Heavy Infantry
Powerful heavy infantry available from campaign start, these men will throw javelins before charging into melee with their blades.
4) Bulgarian Horse Archers
Deadly horse archers, available from the start of the campaign.
5) Bulgarian Heavy Archers
A versatile unit, able to serve both as a strong archer and a medium infantry in melee as the battle demands.
A few other unit changes worth noting:
1) Hashashim can now be recruited by all Islamic factions, (Almohad Caliphate, Ayyubid Sultanate, Seljuk Sultanate, and Kwarezmian Empire) from the City Hall, (Large City) and Mayor's Palace, (Huge City).
2) Tuareg Camel Spearmen and Camel Gunners are no longer area of recruitment units; they can be recruited anywhere on the campaign map. In addition, Camel Gunners now are available earlier in the campaign, specifically after the Matchlock Event, (year 1420-1440).
3) New mercenaries are now available for recruitment in the Constantinople region, and rather good ones at that. I felt it would be a fitting change, given the Byzantines historical record of hiring mercenaries.
Known Bugs (Not Game-Crashing)
While I made this update, I came across some bugs that occurred because I changed the starting date of the campaign. I did my research to try and find a solution to the issues, but without success. I did quite a bit of play-testing to make sure these bugs would not cause crashes or drastically effect gameplay, and in the end I was satisfied that the mod was stable and gameplay was not badly effected. Rest assured, if I find a solution, or if someone can tell me how to fix them, I will release a patch to fix things.
- Orthodox factions can now have more than one Patriarch.
- When playing as a Catholic faction, when your priest is promoted to Cardinal, the game will say the priest is now the Anti-Pope, even when you are not excommunicated. It will pop up every turn saying that your Cardinal has the Anti-Pope trait, even though they are actually a Cardinal. This message will occur for all your Cardinals.
- On the campaign map, the radar on the bottom left-hand corner which show the whole map has a small "Error" sign covering up the left-most portion of the radar.
- The Timurid invasion script does not fire, which means you won't see them in your campaign at any point.
Another thing you may notice, (and this is not a bug), is that several factions will suddenly die off during the Black Death, even factions that were doing quite well. I ran multiple campaigns and was able to determine that the factions that die off are completely random, so it truly is a matter of chance. What causes this sudden destruction is that the faction's king and heir both died of the plague during the same end turn, automatically causing regicide. Unfortunately, the only way to prevent this regicide from happening would be to remove the Black Death from the game entirely, which I have no intention of doing.
So there you have it, the change log from version 4.0 to version LMA of Roar of Conquest! if you like what you see and would like to play the mod for yourself, you can download it here: Roar of Conquest: The Late Middle Ages Now, go forth and conquer!
