SP Medieval Crescent and Cross

[Malkael]

Crescent and Cross
Currently a modification for Mount & Blade 1.011 the "The Broken Crescent and The Holy Cross" project aims to portray the events leading up and including the Third Crusade, which saw the two fearsome leaders Saladin and Richard the Lionheart clash. Basically the aim is to convert Mount&Blade to the setting of the holy wars between the Christian Crusaders and Muslim Arabs, in the longer term we would love to adapt new features into the mod, introduce new historical weapons, armour and mounts, introduce some more factors of realism into Mount&Blade, and overall just pretty much try and present a fun mod which lives up to what we set out to achieve. Not the greatest opening post I know but I'm lost for words , but we does have a map near completion and some troops trees in progress for example.

We would be thankful for anyone who can help us with information such as possible villages we can have for castles, figuring out which weapons and armour to keep, include and throw out, and other such things.

Planned Factions
* The Crusader States
* Knights Templar
* Knights Hospitallers
* The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm
* The Saracens

Planned Features
* Introduce The Setting Of The Crusades
* A Diverse Troop Tree Which Varies On Who And Where You Recruit
* Historical Weapons, Armour, Heraldry And Mounts From The Time Period
* Scripted Events (i.e. The Arrival Of Richard The Lionheart)
* Hopefully More

Very WIP - County of Tripoli (Castle Troop Tree)

Spoiler

                    -->Knight of Tripoli
Squire of Tripoli
                    -->Dismounted Knight of Tripoli

Very WIP - Knights Templar (Guild Troop Tree)

Spoiler

                        -->Templar Knight
Templar Spearman
                        -->Dismounted Templar Knight

Very WIP - Knights Hospitaller (Guild Troop Tree)

Spoiler

                        -->Hospitaller Knight
Hospitaller Spearman
                        -->Dismounted Hospitaller Knight -->Cannons of the Holy Sepulchre

WIP - Campaign Map

Spoiler

Mod Team
* Malkael
* Rheims

Contributors
*None Yet

Thanks For Reading

 

[vadermath]

Good luck, but I advise a name change; this reminds of The Eagle and the Radiant cross way too much

 

[k.]

Good luck, but I advise a name change; this reminds of The Eagle and the Radiant cross way too much

Good advice. My first thought was: "Oh, parody of TEATRC"

 

[Adorno]

Oh, come on, you can't patent the word Cross.
I liked the original title better.

* Scripted Events (i.e. The Arrival Of Richard The Lionheart)

That would be interesting. I suppose by some sort of invasion feature.

 

[phil18]

Excellent news! Good luck with your project.

 

[Rujasu]

Maybe if you put an adjective in front of Crescent and replace cross with something else?
The <something> Crescent and the <something>

Can't wait to try it out, btw

 

[vadermath]

It wasn't just cross, but the form. Crescent and Cross is cool, can't wait.

 

[GodHandApostole]

On the Hospitaller troop tree you wrote Templar Spearman and Templar Knight...
A simple suggestion: maybe u can add something like Templar Grand Marshal, just to balance the Hospitaller's Cannons of the Holy Sepulchre. And Turcopoli for Tripoli troop tree (Crusaders used them as mercenaries to stop Muslim's mounted archers). For Saracens you could add Hashishin or whatever is spelled... Just an idea.

 

[Servitor]

You could change it to Cross and Crescent. It will please allot of people, and in my opinion it sounds better as well! It's up to you whether you will do it or not of course.

Good luck.
Servitor

 

[Skit]

You could contact those who have done a middle east mod Raz and Toff for assistence

 

[Joker86]

First I want to mention that I await THIS crusades mod much more impatient than the other one, because last mentioned takes places in a parallel universe (Caladria), whilst this one is far more intresting due to its direct relation to our REAL world.

Although I have no idea of any aspect of modding, (except of changing a config.ini or something similarly difficult  ) I have some proposals for you:


-Why not making several crusades, not only the third one? You said, there will be some scripted events. How about that? First all the cities, towns and castles down there belong to the muslim factions, ecxept of some smaller ones in Europe and around Byzanz, Sicily, Cyprus and so on (I still don't know how to implement island on the map - perhaps some "sea routes" modelled like water but allowing to travel parties on them?), and as it was in 1095 you first have to conquer every place in the area which today is Israel, to found the Outremer. You will be accompanied by the same lords who fought in history, e.g. Godfrey of Bouillon, Guy de Lusignan etc. pp., and when you finally conquer all the relevant places, some new events get triggered: some of the "older" lords disappear, and new ones appear, for example Saladin and Richard. This is the point where I think you can leave historical background (otherwise it would be boring - you know you will lose as a crusader or win as saracen  ), and where all hell breaks loose: after conquering Jerusalem you will get two months or more to raise an army, to improve your fiefs and so on, and then it will get really ugly: a whole bunch of saracen lords will spawn, with hundreds and thousands of troops, starting from Damaskus, Bagdad and other places in the east (as well as in Egypt. I think the muslims had troops there, too), and flowing like a gigantic wave of destruction over Outremer, so that you (as crusader) have to defend your kingdom with everything you have. It has to be balanced very well, so that even good players will lose a few castles and cities. Like I said, it has to become REALLY ugly! On the other hand, if you want to play Saracens, you will have to defend Jerusalem from the crusaders, and if you fail, YOU will get the totally sick amount of troops to reconquer your lost empire 

I know these events took place over about 200 years, but I don't think the changes in armour and other aspects are so dramatically great that it would be impossible to combine the crusades.

What's important: although there will probably be more than only two factions you should take care that e.g. the French and the Germans don't declare war against each other, or the Templars do against the Hopsitallers... this would be weird 

-Also concerning the scripts: You could bring in a lot of atmosphere, if you change the scripts for the heroes, when they get near to their hometown. Instead of telling how great it is, you could let the crusaders tell how they are going to slaughter every saracen to get into heaven. Or how your saracen heroes want to drive out the infidels of their country. And the few tries of tolerance and acception, that existed in these times. Also the peasants in the villages and the townsfolk can be edited in this way. And how about adding some jewish citizens? Simply to show the madness in these times, and to make the player feel it. This can be reached by some quests, too. E.g. having to raid an enemy village and to kill every peasant there. The whole atmosphere of the game should be dark, realistic and dirty. Even the fighters (expecially the christian ones) should look broken, dirty, mad and kind of "****ed up" (sorry).

And the final thing: captured villages should only be able to "produce" your own troops, so they have to be "switched" when they change owner. It would be paradox to have Mameluks or something like that in your christian army. Only your own faction troops or some convertits (like the Turkopols)


I hope my proposals are not impossible to realise, and that you like them of course. If something still isn't clear simply as. As you surely have recognized English is not my mother language, in fact it's German 

 

[Malkael]

On the Hospitaller troop tree you wrote Templar Spearman and Templar Knight...
A simple suggestion: maybe u can add something like Templar Grand Marshal, just to balance the Hospitaller's Cannons of the Holy Sepulchre. And Turcopoli for Tripoli troop tree (Crusaders used them as mercenaries to stop Muslim's mounted archers). For Saracens you could add Hashishin or whatever is spelled... Just an idea.

Realised that later, now fixed the names to read Hospitaller *Troop Name* for the WIP Hospitaller troop tree. From memory I believe we were going to have Mercenaries, such as Turcopoli, available for recruitment from Taverns in Towns, if not I'll definitely jot down the idea on my notepad.

@Joker86,
Interesting ideas, Rhiems and myself will note them down and see what we can do currently with our limited ,but growing, skills. We have only just recently started learning to modify Mount&Blade but as you can see we have been getting some stuff done so hopefully our other skills (eg: Using Python) follow suit so we can do some awesome ideas. If there currently is not a documented way of having factions not declare war on some while still waging war on others then we will attempt to find a way for the Crusader States to not declare war on each other while continuing to fight the Saracens and such. We certainly plan to change the dialogue found throughout the game to match the change of setting to the "Crusades". Were looking forwards to trying to deliver a great mod, and welcome anyone who wants to help us.

 

[beton]

Newer crusade? Not boring? 

 

[Joker86]

@Joker86,
Interesting ideas, Rhiems and myself will note them down and see what we can do currently with our limited ,but growing, skills. We have only just recently started learning to modify Mount&Blade but as you can see we have been getting some stuff done so hopefully our other skills (eg: Using Python) follow suit so we can do some awesome ideas. If there currently is not a documented way of having factions not declare war on some while still waging war on others then we will attempt to find a way for the Crusader States to not declare war on each other while continuing to fight the Saracens and such. We certainly plan to change the dialogue found throughout the game to match the change of setting to the "Crusades". Were looking forwards to trying to deliver a great mod, and welcome anyone who wants to help us.

Yes, I feared there would be problems with the various factions. Perhaps it would be better if there really are only two factions, but owning different villages with different troops to recruit. Let's say the christian faction can recruit templars in villages in France, Teutonic Knights in Germany and Turkopols in Anatolia. (Not really the knights, but the peasants leading to them, of course). So the muslims can recruit Mameluks in Egypt, Saracens in Syria and so on.

I don't think the other changes would be more difficult than in other mods. Baiscally it's the same: new weapons, armours, a new world map and new dialogues.

The only thing that could get nasty are the new settings. You will probably need some new castles and towns, and also some new random maps for battles: this typical landscape with bright, stony and dusty earth, some dry, small bushes and some olive trees or palms.

 

[Atihan]

Cant wait looks great!
Maybe make some of the bandits beduiens, dont know if it can be done but camels insted of horses in some cases could be fun just a thought. Order knights shouldnt be able to be taken prisoner they should fight to the death cause not alowed to be ransomed. Is it possible to make certin events happen at a certin time? Say when u reach level 10 something happens or at a certin date someone declares war, I dont know if it is but u could have alot of fun with that anyways just a thought hope you fine some of it usefull and sorry about my english!

 

[viskarenvisla]

Oh wow! I just put up a poll for people to vote on whether or not to revive the Crusader mod for .903. Have you taken a look at it? You should definitely download .903 and play it if you haven't, to get some inspiration or what not.

If you're going to do this kind of game I will give you a piece of advice. I just did a long, complicated research project on the Crusades, and I realized that in a lot of games like these modders forget the Eastern Orthodox factions. Armenia, the Eastern Roman Empire, et alio were very, very influential and important in terms of military and alliance during this period. If you're confused as to what the units look like, go to twcenter.net and look for the Broken Crescent mod (yes there's a mod called Broken Crescent already, and if you play Medieval 2 Total War PLAY IT!!!!!!!). I can tell you this right now that you'll attract a lot more interest if you include some more unique factions.

I'll even provide you with research on the factions if you'd like. Email me plz. [email protected]

 

[GeorgianCrusader]

Oh wow! I just put up a poll for people to vote on whether or not to revive the Crusader mod for .903. Have you taken a look at it? You should definitely download .903 and play it if you haven't, to get some inspiration or what not.

If you're going to do this kind of game I will give you a piece of advice. I just did a long, complicated research project on the Crusades, and I realized that in a lot of games like these modders forget the Eastern Orthodox factions. Armenia, the Eastern Roman Empire, et alio were very, very influential and important in terms of military and alliance during this period. If you're confused as to what the units look like, go to twcenter.net and look for the Broken Crescent mod (yes there's a mod called Broken Crescent already, and if you play Medieval 2 Total War PLAY IT!!!!!!!). I can tell you this right now that you'll attract a lot more interest if you include some more unique factions.

I'll even provide you with research on the factions if you'd like. Email me plz. [email protected]

yes,your right,armenia,roman empire,georgia and other orthodox countries

 

[vadermath]

There is already a crusader mod in production, I think.

 

[naztek]

Cant wait looks great!
Maybe make some of the bandits beduiens, dont know if it can be done but camels insted of horses in some cases could be fun just a thought. Order knights shouldnt be able to be taken prisoner they should fight to the death cause not alowed to be ransomed. Is it possible to make certin events happen at a certin time? Say when u reach level 10 something happens or at a certin date someone declares war, I dont know if it is but u could have alot of fun with that anyways just a thought hope you fine some of it usefull and sorry about my english!

makes the game more realistic but i dont like the idea of camels in the game

 

[Luka_templar]

are they still working on this mod or not?   I really wanna play this mod.... pls dont give up!!! you have my support  =)