Mod FAQ, news and information

Some of the questions came from a meeting dadasauvage and I (Andrew1830) had for the next version which will be released as soon as possible (Alpha 1.2).
In addition, I've added some questions to give you as much information as possible, trying to give as much information as possible for people who have already played the mod but also for new people who would like to play it !

(Questions in the form of an interview. Answer provided by Andrew1830.)

1. Can you briefly explain your mod and how it differs from other mods ?

   "Of course! The mod starts in 1080, as in the vanilla, until 1250. The mod has a brand new campaign map with the regions of today's Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland as the centre of it. But there are also parts of England, Germany and France. We have 26 playable and historical factions. And this is where the mod stands out, the factions are not countries or states but noble families. The player will not have to embody a state with a king or an emperor but will embody the head of a family whose goal will be to impose itself against the other families, called House. Following this, there are also the 200 regions on the campaign map which are principalities, i.e. counties or lordships that actually existed between the 11th and 13th centuries with a system of titles when you own the region".

2. What are these Houses ?
   

   "It would take too long to list them all, but to summarise, we could say that there are obviously the dynasties. These are the families that ruled the kingdoms of England and France and the Holy Roman Empire at the time. And if not, there are other families who ruled Flanders, Brabant, Champagne, Holland, Saxony, Lorraine and many others at the time. But players will also find two so-called ecclesiastical factions that represent the Church led by the Pope at the time, but also the Church of the Holy Roman Empire, which is a church under the control of the Emperor. All these factions are divided not by their religions as in the base game, since they are all Catholic, but by their cultures, such as the French and Germanic cultures".

3. How did you get the idea for this mod ?

   "You see, I am Belgian, a history student and an absolute fan of the Total War franchise. During my university years, I had a course which marked me a lot, it's the course of "History of Belgium and the former Netherlands" which are nowadays roughly the current Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. In particular the part devoted to the Middle Ages which I found incredibly interesting because of its complexity, its richness and the number of powers in the current Belgium alone, in such a concentrated territory. It was only during the months of June and July 2022 that the idea came to me to transpose this period to a Total War. But at the same time, I discovered Crusader Kings 2 and 3 and that's when I got the idea to try to mix these two concepts in a new mod dedicated to Medieval 2".

4. Are you alone in making this mod ?

   "No and fortunately! I can count on the participation of dadasauvage who takes care of all the modding part and me, I take care of the history part, texter to add, to modify, etc. For those who want to know how our duo started, I had created a page on ModDB explaining the project of my mod and that I was looking for people to help me because I had no knowledge in modding M2TW. That's where dadasauvage came in. He does a great job and it's a real pleasure to exchange with him on what we can do to improve the mod! I think we make a good team because he has a good knowledge of modding and he's there to tell me if it's possible or not, to translate my ideas to add them in the mod like the modification of the crusades and jihads functionality in the game and many other things you'll discover soon. In addition, we can count on a larger group of people who are asked to test the versions to find any bugs or other issues".

(All is not said to leave some suspense and other changes may be made between the publication of this article and the publication of the new version of the mod)

1. The faction icons are not uniform. Will they be changed ?
   

   "Yes, they are not very beautiful, but it was only temporary until we could make them more beautiful. However, we were going to make them prettier but keep the shield shape, in heraldry. But dadasauvage came up with the idea of putting the figures in the round and I must say they look good. We'll let the players choose if they want to leave them in or go back to the traditional shape".

2. In the campaign menu, you do not offer a campaign map as such.

   "That's right! We proposed a map showing the regions but divided into zones of influence more or less, but that was only temporary. For the next version, we plan to make a campaign menu map by placing the faction icons on the campaign menu map to show the players where the factions are more or less located. But in the end, we will have a campaign map like M2TW with the regions highlighted when you click on the faction".

3. You have modified the texts in the campaign menu presenting each faction, will you modify them ?

   "I plan to do this for the next version, perhaps making the texts longer and with more details about the historical situation of the faction in 1080. However, I still have to discuss this with David to avoid it being too long".

4. During the last mod update, players could see that you had added a music in the mod menu, do you plan to add more ?

   "Of course, and we're looking for them now. We plan to add them as soon as we have a small list of 5 to 10 tunes and add them step by step. By the way, if anyone reading this has any royalty free music that fits in the context of the mod, we'd love to hear it !".

5. When the campaign is launched, there is still the introductory video at the beginning of the campaign, do you intend to remove or replace it ?

   "We were going to try and record a moment in the mod game where there is a charge, for example, or introduce another video such as footage from a documentary for example. But this is not a priority and would be a bonus for the next version if we have time to do it".

6. You have modified the loading screens by adding elements of the Bayeux tapestry, are you going to make any more changes ?

   "No, not really, if we find pictures, we'll add them of course but right now I'm looking for more anecdotes or proverbs that fit into the mod and could be really interesting to add to the mod".

7. In the mod, generals and family members receive titles of nobility when they take cities. But you still haven't renamed the regions on the map to historical names.

   "Yes, it's true and I apologise, we forgot to add them in the last update but you can be sure they will be there for this version".

8. Do you intend to leave the possibility of crusading on the mod ?

   "So yes and no, we intend to use the mechanics of the crusade but also of the jihad to link them to the factions belonging to the kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire. We still need to modify the texts that come from M2TW vanilla to replace them with our own texts. But the mechanics will serve in a context where historically, in 1080, the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire are still competing for influence, for the legacy of Charlemagne and each having views on the territories of present-day Belgium. I hope this will work out because in addition to the other little surprises and changes, I think it could give the campaign a lot more dynamism and challenge".

9. When playing the campaign, we can see that you have added new events and "history sheets" as you call them.

   "Yes, the mod contains new events that will appear but that will have no impact on the campaign but will be historical records to share information, notions or other on the Middle Ages or on the region at that time".

10. As far as family trees are concerned, do you intend to go back to Hugues Capet for the case of the Capetian House faction ?

    "We were discussing and it's true that it would be nice to reproduce a family tree that would go back to the founder of the House, the noble family. But that would take time, and for the moment, it is not planned. Maybe in the future".

11. In terms of diplomacy, unlike Medieval 2, we can see that each faction has its own diplomacy.

    Indeed, we have just reworked the diplomacy for the whole mod which is more accurate and more historical. I tried to transcribe the diplomatic relations in 1080. So there is a whole system of alliances and enemies according to the context of the time and according to the relations that the families had between them. My only regret is that I can't put factions as vassals at the beginning of the campaign to represent this system of feudalism and vassalization within the kingdom of England, France and the Holy Roman Empire. But we do not despair of being able to do so in the future.

12. There are factions which are not noble families but represent the Church which had a great influence during the Middle Ages.

    "Yes, there are two ecclesiastical factions which represent the Church led by the Pope and represented on the map by all the ecclesiastical principalities of the region and on the other side, we have the Church of the Holy Empire. The latter is directly linked to the Emperor and supports him in the conflict with the Pope. The player can therefore play them and try to make the opposing camp fold".

13. Should not there be a system of four rounds per year instead of two rounds per year ?

    "No, we're sticking with two turns so that the children in the family can grow up fairly quickly because with a four turn per year campaign, the player will have to resort to adopting characters to be able to advance in the game and our goal is that the player doesn't need to adopt as many characters as in Medieval 2 but to develop his family. That's why we've added a "bastard" trait that makes the adoptee have less than three loyalties".

14. Are you thinking of increasing the size of the campaign map ?
    

    No, the map is already very large and we've already put in the maximum number of regions, that's 200 including the sea. The map is about the same size as the large campaign map in Medieval 2. Furthermore, the distances and the tower passages would become too long. A map that is too big is not interesting and would not add anything to the mod.

15. Do you intend to use the mechanics of the "Kalmar Union" from the Teutonic campaign ?

    Yes, someone (Sigieron) gave us the idea to use the "Union of Kalmar" mechanic to turn the ruling families of the kingdoms of England, France, the Holy Roman Empire and the county of Flanders into these factions under certain conditions. We will also try to add it for this version, if not, as soon as possible.

1. Units and mercenaries on the mod (unit size, unit statistics, unit origin, etc.).
2. One or several campaigns and if several campaigns, what can be done (1066 ? 1080 ? 1190 ? 1214 ? "vanilla" campaign, i.e. without alliance ?) ?
3. Added more detail to the campaign map as well as a better texture on the map than in vanilla (forests, merchant resources, forts, bridge, rivers).
4. Added more historical events to the mod (General Events or Campaign Map regions).
5. Try to put a rebel sub-faction named after the family that held the city at the time and there will be four faction symbols to indicate in which space the rebel region belonged (Kingdom of France, Anglo-Norman Kingdom, Holy Roman Empire and the former Kingdom of Lotharingia which united the duchy of Lower Lotharingia and Upper Lotharingia in 1080).
6. Redo the missions of the vanilla boards with a customization that fits the mod better.
7. Making custom battle maps and historical battles (But this will only be much later when the units are finished and the mod is almost finished).

Thank you for reading the article and don't hesitate to share your opinions in the comments below the article and possibly ask your questions !