SP Dark Ages The Sword And The Axe

Hey Antonis.  Just found and downloaded this Mod, been playing it for a couple hours now, looks pretty nice.  Only issue I have found so far is the text.  There is always this weird purple hue behind it, making it more hard to read then it already is.  This hue is also behind the pictures of the weapon you are currently holding.  Not a game-breaking thing, just annoying.  Do you ever plan to release another patch for anything?

But of course I will release a patch. Currently, there are fixes for some bridges on land, sea raiders and general bandits, texturing details, some wrong scenes and minor things. All that has been taken care of, now I will take a look in the font you say. But work is slow, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I work on a couple of other projects, help in some others and have a messy life(as all of us do). I will release the patch in the close future, though, don't worry.

Sounds good.  I noticed the bridges too .  My explanation, the rivers all dried up .  I liked the sea raiders on land coming at me and my 4 men at 100 MPH lol.  Got me some good starting gear.

Antonis said:

But of course I will release a patch. Currently, there are fixes for some bridges on land, sea raiders and general bandits, texturing details, some wrong scenes and minor things. All that has been taken care of, now I will take a look in the font you say. But work is slow, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I work on a couple of other projects, help in some others and have a messy life(as all of us do). I will release the patch in the close future, though, don't worry.

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So <_< is the patch ready? I'm about to get back into this game again and this mod has so much potential.

Potential, yes, but it is still so far from being a fully put together mod. What you should do when you finish your "whole map of Europe" for the other mod is put it in this mod too. The whole Scandinavian concept of being a Viking was to enrich yourself and your people at the expense of other societies. There is no one to raid in this mod. The native factions are replaced with Scandinavian factions that never existed in the Viking age. If you wanted to have a Scandinavian only mod you would still need a lot more than 6 factions but it's not really Viking.

The best mod I can imagine would be a big European mod set in the Viking age. You could play as a Saxon in England trying to defend your Kingdom from Viking invasion or as a Viking raider or trader. So many possibilities.

...when you finish your "whole map of Europe"

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I actually finished that , now I am dividing my free time between all my projects:"The Sword and the Axe", "805AD"(the mod about Europe), "Fires of War"(you can find it in my signature), "Warriors of God"(a Crusader mod) and "Chronichles of Ellon(a story driven low medieval fantasy mod). Yeah, all should take a while, I imagine.

Wow that's a lot of projects
Don't you feel "sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread”?

No, I actually enjoy it enormously. The key is to not overdo it. I split the time equally between all those, have different notebooks etc. It's quite fun, if anything else.

Tell us more about this Europe 805 ad project.

Well, since I posted all the updates for the "Sword and the Axe", we could get a bit off-topic, I suppose.

Okay, it's the map of Europe in 805AD, after Charlemagne was crowned Emperor by the Pope. Currently, I have th following factions: Byzantine Empire, the Frankish Empire(not HRE yet ), the Bulagrian Khaganate, the Rus Khaganate, the Abbasids, the Rustamids(and North Africa), some minor factions of the northern balkan and for the future: Kingdoms of England(I will se what to do with those, haven't made up my mind yet) and Scandinavian Kingdoms.

I have implemented Diplomacy, formations, battle tweaks of my own(difficult retreating, skirmish etc). Also, made the companions(new with stories and everything) and all the items are ready. Everything has been changed, weapons armours etc, some are my own texturing job.

All artwork, presentation and music is finished. Implemented Metal Sounds and Sounds of suffering mods and improved all graphics(while aiming for a better performance).

I haven't touched any troops yet, not kings, lords and pretenders(although I have a clear draft off many of them). All banners are in 0% progression as well, although I have many banners ready, I haven't got them in their texture shhets yet. Most of dialogs are also untouched(that won't take me long, anyway). There are other things as well, but overall, the progress is good, especially when you think I work on it completely alone.

If you want to ask anything, feel free.

I wish there was a way to make the Scandinavian Kingdoms smaller and fractured but that no one on the map could invade Scandinavia. There were Danish and Norwegian kings but I wouldn't really think of it as "The Kingdom of Denmark" etc. The standard warband mechanics with, f.e. English lords cruising over to Norway to raid a village just doesn't work for me.

Yeah, I know. That's why I hadn't touched those factions yet, I have the same problem. An idea I am working on is make just the kingdom of Wessex in England(the part of map that has England in it isn't that big, because I didn't want to burden the weaker PCs) and make one or two Scandinavian factions or petty kingdoms, with only one settlement, who will be similar to bandit factions, but with headquarters and will raid and rob. A thing like that was present in the 1755 Old Frontier mod with pirate factions. It isn't that hard to do and it sounds possible(the only thing to do is lower the relations with the other factions, exclude lords from wanting land and just assign one settlement to the king of that faction).

I will see what can be done.

That my work. There were a few large settlements in Scandinavia but they never really cared much for city life to the extent that the Carolingians or other Europeans did. I suppose it is because they were never Romanized. Oddly enough though most of the Irish coastal cities today were essentially viking longphorts, because while Ireland was a raiders gold mine it was a bad idea to raid to far inland. Full of bogs and the Irish fighters were great at ambushes. So these cities rose up around them based on the export of Irish slaves and salted meats and the import of weapons and mercenaries to Irish clan kings. It was really an amazing relationship.

I would like to give the mechanics a bit of thought and get back to you on it. Do you have a topic set up for the 805 mod yet?

I always need ideas.

No, I don't have a thread yet and probably it will delay a bit, but you can always send me PMs, I always respond, you know that.

Thats a lot of mods you need to finish, hope you will get them done and not bail them.

Most of them are 3/4 finished, at least for a first version.

You might make it Wessex and Danish York. Then if you have any more room you could put Wales and even the Hiberno-Norse Kingdom.

England in the map hsa room for one faction and (quite possibley)maybe two, I'm afraid. I wanted to give the focus to the Franks and Byzantines vs. The Arabs(of Araby and North Africa). And of course the Rus and the balkan people.

Now, as an announcement, I'm going on a trip for a few days tomorrow, so don't worry if I don't answer anything guys. See you this weekend again!

Hey Antonis...great mod!  Just tried it out for a couple of hours. 


I noticed on a different page you had a companion wheel posted?  The image doesn't seem to be working for me however. 

If you have the time, could you please post up the companion interaction wheel? 

Many thx!

If you only have space for 2 factions on England it should definitely be Wessex and Danish York for this time period.

Btw, The teaching company (ttc), I think they call it the great lectures now. Has a 36 video lecture on the Vikings that covers everything. Really good stuff. The guy that does the lecture Dr. Kenneth Harl is actually a specialist on Byzantine history and I think they have a lecture series for that as well.  You can download them.