[WARBAND]Thinking of a troop expansion/faction changing mod and need an oppinion

[Oddball_E8]

Ok, so im making a small mod akin to the 81 extra troops mod and im basing the factions on different medieval nations/factions.
Swadians are based on the English and the French
Sarranids are based on the Turks and somewhat on the Egyptians.
Khergits are based on the Mongols and some of the more obscure far-eastern nations (but mainly just mongols)
Vaegirs are based on the Two great city-empires of Novgorod and Kiev (basically theire russians)
Nords are Scandinavians

now., heres the thing... im unsure of what i want to do with the Rhodoks.
I know that i dont want them to be the "no cavalry" faction they are right now. I was gonna base them on the italian nations of the time as most do, but then i was tempted by the old and dying byzantine empire of the time and im currently torn between the two.

an italian faction would certainly be different from the other factions right now, but a byzantine faction would be very intriguing to build. It would almost be a meld of the other factions that are already in the game and still have a few very unique units to it...

so what do you think? italians or byzantians?

 

[Tuckles]

Scrap everything and start fresh.

Why do the Swadians always have to be western Europe?

Why do the vaegirs have to be Russians?

Why do the Nords have to be Scandinavians?

Why do the khergits have to be Mongols?

etc.

If you want some semblance of Native, just remember this:

Swadians - Heavy Cav (Cataphracts? Knights? Your own hybrid crossbow-toting knights?)

Vaegirs - Bowmen (English longbowmen come to mind, but why stop there?)

Nords - Footmen (Scots, Danes, etc.)

Khergits - Light to Medium Horsemen (Why not have some hussars or something?)

Rhodoks - Anti-Cav/Defensive (Greeks, Italy, etc. etc. Hell, the Scots fit here too if you believe M2TW)

Sarranids - Heavy Cav and Light Infantry, but then again, they're generic, so why not make something totally different? Heavy infantry with light cav aux? Heavy Bowmen?

 

[Adorno]

Swadians are based on the English and the French

English and French  - I see a civil war coming 

 

[Tuckles]

Well, it does make sense you know.

Swadia's got always fighting with its neighbor (or in this case, neighbors), and it retreats fairly often.

British and French traits (respectively) if I do say so myself.

 

[Oddball_E8]

and dont forget that the english royalty were mainly french decendants anyway...

interestinly most who voted seem to like the italian idea, but im personally leaning more and more towards the byzantines...

 

[Oddball_E8]

on a sidenote i am seriously thinking about renaming the factions...

oh and i made a rough sketch of the byzantian rhodok troop tree and came up with 23 troops of wich 9 were dedicated infantry (first stage recruits included), 3 were archers, 2 were crossbowmen, 2 were horse archers and 2 light cavalry and 6 medium/heavy cavalry

somewhat different from what a "normal" rhodok faction would look like...
of course a regular italian version of rhodoks would still include cavalryk, although they would consist mainly of a type very similar to the swadian ones.

to me the byzantian version is more of an "allrounder" that can go toe-to-toe with most factions. They have heavy infantry in the form of varangian guard (akin to nord heavy axemen), elite swordsmen and germanic troops in platemail.
Their archers consist mainly of nomadic tribesmen (ie khergits in the M&B world) that have moved into the rhodok territory and serve them now, on foot and on horseback
and they also have both a light horse cavalry and a large selection of medium and heavy cavalry (all the way up to cataphracts)

A more italian version would more or less include pikemen, crossbowmen and knights. To me that seems awfully boring and unimaginative.

 

[CounterPoint391]

Remember, this is your mod...... But, if you did make the Rhodoks more 'Italian' maybe have some medium cavalry types and some mounted crossbowmen......

 

[Oddball_E8]

in case anyone was curious here is the total tally of troops in each factions troop-tree (nords excluded since i havent done them yet)

Swadians: 17

Sarranids: 21

Khergits: 11

Vaegirs: 22

Rhodoks (byzantine version): 23

EDIT: oh and the reason for the somewhat low total numer of unit types in each faction is because i removed the "dismounted" versions of all troops... since you can actually dismount (dont know why people insist on putting them in their mods)
I mean, who needs to have a "dismounted knight" when you could just dismount your mounted knight?

 

[Oddball_E8]

swadians done, halfway through the vaegirs now...

 

[Oddball_E8]

well... ive done the swadians, vaegirs, khergits and nords now...
only have sarranids and rhodians left and ive decided to do the rhodians as byzantines.

mainly because it will be refreshing with something new...

 

[Oddball_E8]

UPDATE: Rhodians (byzantine version) done...
now i will spend a week or so testing them out before moving on with this mini-mod

 

[Proie]

the khergit can be a samurai or a all asian faction
and swadia a crusader faction

 

[Oddball_E8]

thanx but ive decided on all the factions already... all i was missing was the rhodoks and theyre the only ones ive made very different from native.

 

[Proie]

if you need a beta-tester
you can count on me

 

[Oddball_E8]

thanx for the offer, but right now i still have the sarranid faction to do then i have to go through all the troops and give them the correct skills and values...
as it is ive only scratched the surface by making the troop trees, naming the troops and giving them the proper equipment and level.
the hard work is in the monotony of crunching the numbers with the level to skill ration and such...

but next weekend they should be done...
unless it gets hectic at work this week.

 

[Oddball_E8]

right now theres only the sarranid faction to do... all other factions have their troops and values done...
sarranids will hopefully be done by the end of the week and the mod will be ready for release.

 

[Oddball_E8]

almost done...

 

[Unknown Assassin]

A BLEND OF THA ITALIANS AND BYZIES!!!!!

That, if you ask me, would be the ultimate rhodok line.And plus, one of the italian city states (Venice) was byzantine, so a blend would be good

 

[Oddball_E8]

sorry dude... alreday done hehe... just betatesting it now...
then its ready for a preliminary release (ok, i still have to do mercenaries)