HYW - Suggestions

Sir David of Derby said:

Is this going to be updated to .8xx? If so, roughly when?

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Yes it'll be updated, when I'm sure 0.805 is the last release.

But I can't give a precise release date for HYW 4.1, maybe in January.

About Burgundy, it's not in the mod since they weren't in the war at that time.

Ah it's good to hear from you Gandalf my guesses are one more patch will come out that fixes all the remaining bugs and hopefully doesn't bring new ones. Well it's to bad Burgundy wasn't in the war yet because a 3rd faction would be a great addon oh well you can't have it all. January sounds good, any updates on the mod ?

It occured to me while fiddling around with the unofficial editor in HYW that I shall be unable to do so with future versions. That being the case, may I humbly suggest adding an extra archer tier in the French tree (not as proficient as the English longbowmen, of course) -- or remove their bowmen entirely. I hate these evolutionary dead ends. I realize the French are compensated by having two knight tiers, armed with lances and swords respectively, and that's another thing: it makes the English knights unattractive in that they only have lancers.

Also, suggested name swap: English crossbowman <-> English arbalester. It sounds more correct to me to have the arbalester higher than the crossbowman, in name. Another name swap: torturer <-> executioner. The executioner had a reviled profession, but he was still in higher social standing than the torturer in the dungeon (in the cases where there was actually a distinction between the jobs -- often the executioner would also be a torturist).

Some interesting suggestions here.

I'm not really for adding high-tier archers for France, neither for giving a second type of knights to England.
Still, you're right about the English cavalry being unattractive: that's why I had added sword-armed knights in the 'Zendar' unit tree. But you'll probably answer that the French can't recruit longbowmen...

I believe it can be compatible with the recruitable mercenaries many people have already suggested. You would be able to recruit mercenaries to repair the 'flaws' of your army. That will be quite some work to create new textures based on German, Flemish, Italian, etc, heraldries but it should be worth it.
Edit: By the way, any pics of foreign mercenaries from the period would be quite helpful.

Anyway, since the Unnoficial Editor won't be able to edit future versions, I'll release the Python source. It's not as accessible as the UE, but it's better than nothing. By the way, the source for 4.0 has been on my FileFront account for a couple of months or so. Just in case some people are interested.
http://files.filefront.com/Source_for_HYW_40/;6126762;;/fileinfo.html

About the name swaps: crossbowman and arbalester are synonyms (unless I'm completely mistaken), and since English is not my mother tongue I can't really know which one sounds more appropriate for low/high-tier unit. I'll tweak that, unless another English speaker says the contrary.

AFAIK, Arbalests were windlass-pulled crossbows. This is what wikipedia says about it.

The term arbalest is sometimes used interchangeably with crossbow. (This is evinced by the number of people in Britain who have the surname Arblaster. The surnames Crossbowman and Ballisterius are very rare.) 'Arbalest' is French corruption from the Roman name arcuballista for crossbow. Notice that modern French uses the word arbalète, not arbalest, and does so for both crossbow and arbalest (the latter may be referred to as heavy crossbow, but an actual heavy crossbow may not be the same as an arbalest).

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Well, I'm not a native English speaker either, and I am an amateur historian at best in the subject. But isn't the arbalest a more powerful version of the crossbow? And the high level French crossbowmen are called arbaletriers, too, so...

Also, the English were famous for their longbowmen, not their crossbowmen, so it's a bit odd that the latter would share the same boost to their skills. And I note the usual M&B skills imbalances, such as crossbowmen being more skilled at archery than crossbows, the English longbowman being way more proficient in polearms than the English knight and halberdier, horseless units having riding proficiencies etc. But this is nothing new, so it's not something I blame on HYW (in some mods I have seen skills actually deteriorate with advancement, so it could be worse).

Much obliged about releasing the source, by the way. Of course, without a handy editor I am completely lost and wouldn't know what to do with it, but I'll ask about that in the appropriate place when the time comes.

Arbalests are solely winch operated crossbows rather than stirrup pulls, as such they can be strung to higher poundages giving them the potential for more strength.

Ok then, thanks for the clarification. I'll change the names.

Kissaki said:

Also, the English were famous for their longbowmen, not their crossbowmen, so it's a bit odd that the latter would share the same boost to their skills.

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Another good point here. I'll change that too.
Anyway, all ranged units are a bit weaker now, since I reduced their armor quality and removed most of their shields.

Look at this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owain_Lawgoch

RoRo said:

De nouvelles armes de nouvelles armures

Possibilité d'avoir des étandarts comme sur Holy War?

de nouveau héros (Jeanne d'arc, La_Hire ect... )

Avoir une unité suprème après la cavalerie lourde, genre cavalerie du roi...

Plus de possibilité de troupe dans l'arbre...

Des piquiers Suisse en mercenaire?

C'est tout ce qui me viens sur le moment.Désolé mon anglais est pas au point!

En tout cas ton mod est superbe c'est de loin mon préféré!

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Could someone translate that for me? So I coud 'agree' and 'disagree' and 'alter' 'it's' sugestion's

Servitor said:

RoRo said:

De nouvelles armes de nouvelles armures

Possibilité d'avoir des étandarts comme sur Holy War?
de nouveau héros (Jeanne d'arc, La_Hire ect... )

Avoir une unité suprème après la cavalerie lourde, genre cavalerie du roi...

Plus de possibilité de troupe dans l'arbre...

Des piquiers Suisse en mercenaire?

C'est tout ce qui me viens sur le moment.Désolé mon anglais est pas au point!

En tout cas ton mod est superbe c'est de loin mon préféré!

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Could someone translate that for me? So I coud 'agree' and 'disagree' and 'alter' 'it's' sugestion's

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I could try but my french isn't the best

De nouvelles armes de nouvelles armures New weapons and new armors

Possibilité d'avoir des étandarts comme sur Holy War? not sure on this one but i think it's something with weather effects like in The Holy War

de nouveau héros (Jeanne d'arc, La_Hire ect... ) New hero's (for example Jeanne d'arc, La_Hire etc,...)

Avoir une unité suprème après la cavalerie lourde, genre cavalerie du roi... A new type of cavalery that is better than normal cavalery like the kings cavalery for example

Plus de possibilité de troupe dans l'arbre... More(new/expanded) unit trees

Des piquiers Suisse en mercenaire? Hirable Suisse Pikeman (mercenaries)

C'est tout ce qui me viens sur le moment.Désolé mon anglais est pas au point! That's all he can think of right now and he's sorry his English isn't that developed yet

En tout cas ton mod est superbe c'est de loin mon préféré! Last of all he sais this mod is super and is his most prefered mod

-GandalfTheGrey said:

The second sentence: it's not weather effects but standards, or flags.

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The second sentence: it's not weather effects but standards, or flags. Other than that, good translation.

I think I had missed those suggestions:
- There will be a few new weapons and armors. Not much though.
- Standards are already used by knights, but you can't find them in stores to prevent them from cluttering. I may add a special merchant for standards.
- I might add new heroes, but not Joan of Arc & La Hire since the mod starts earlier.
- The unit trees won't really be expanded, but slightly modified (see the last posts).
- Same for hireable mercenaries, they should be in. See above.

-GandalfTheGrey said:

- Standards are already used by knights, but you can't find them in stores to prevent them from cluttering. I may add a special merchant for standards.

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I, for one, would appreciate that. I don't want my knights to out-knight me! I want pretty colours, too. A special shop for more "knightly" items might be in order (making plate and fancy helmets more scarce in shops, too, and warhorses no longer sold at the grocery store).

- Same for hireable mercenaries, they should be in. See above.

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With their own trees, I hope? *Bambi eyes*

-GandalfTheGrey said:

- Standards are already used by knights, but you can't find them in stores to prevent them from cluttering. I may add a special merchant for standards.

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Please do add some sort of merchant with the standerds

Kissaki said:

- Same for hireable mercenaries, they should be in. See above.

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With their own trees, I hope? *Bambi eyes*

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You know I can resist Bambi eyes, right?

Whom do you take me for? I'm not going to add mercenaries without a minimal upgrade tree for them...

Who exactly was La Hire? I never could figure that out...

Basically, he was a French knight, comrade of Joan of Arc and later Charles VII's captain in a few battles.

Are there any plans to add the British Isles to the mod?  During much of the 100 years war England was also at war with the Scots, and it would be interesting perhaps to be able to get a boat from Calais or Flanders back to England to fight off the Scots.  Or indeed to be a Scottish character fighting the English.

Of course, I'm sure there is plenty of work to be done already, so it may be impractical, but I thought it worth suggesting.

I think Gandalf is focussing on the area of mid-France, because that's where all the action between France and England mostly was. Adding the Scotts would be a bit irrelevant to their war, economy etc. left aside.
If the British Isles were added, the mod wouldn't really be solely about the HYW anymore. But I definately wouldn't mind it being added.

It would certainly not be irrelevant for England's war, as fighting the Scots would tie down resources they could have used in France. Subsequently, it wouldn't be irrelevant for France either, having Scotland take away some of the pressure.