Great Idea Scion.
But i would suggest a larger map and that the mod include some other Hyborian kingdoms. Simply because even if the aquilonia was having a hard time in the period you talk about, there are still one of the mightiest kingdom of the Hyborian Age. Their Knights are deadly as well as their other units like
the gunderland bowmen for exemples (it looks like if Aquilonia was a mix of the English and French kingdom of the Hundred Years War period, the best knights at the time, french, and the best bowmen, english)
With the M&B engine and mechanics, Pictish Tribes will be River Pirate's like. Quiet a challenge in numbers at the start of the game but cannon fodder when you have a good charging horse and good iron armors and weapons. You can tweak this a bit with Troop skills among other things, but to be accurate with the background you must leave the pictish without any armor or with fur armor at most...
So i suggest you could have a larger map and include some really interesting regions and kingdoms in this mod :
- Stygia for the deadly and evil Pyramids, sources of mummies and other walking deads.
- Hyrkania for the well known Horse Archers and of course the biggest army of the West of Vilayet Sea. At least before the creation of the Turan Empire. Don't known if it has been created for this time period.
- All kingdoms in the middle of those two : Koth, Zamora, Brythunia, Corinthia, Argos, etc. And especially Shem in order to have their rich Free State-Cities for trading and mercenary support.
You'll say that i'm crazy or that you can't do this on your own before march 2056, but to my mind with the selection you have made depending on how you adjust the various factions units, you could have great difficulties to make a balanced out unit selection between the major factions.
If you think that some of my ideas are good enough PM me and we'll see if i can help you.
Good luck for this mod.
LORD YIG.