SP Dark Ages Wind and Oars

[ArabArcher35]

Wind and Oars​

Overview
Wind and oars is a mod based on the 6th to 10th century Viking Period. It will have a heavy focus on naval combat, raiding, and exploration/settlement. It will include 7 factions (it is undecided as to whether you will be able to join/start out in all of those 7 factions), including the *Norwegians, *Danes, *Swedes, Finnish Tribes, Celtic Tribes, Slavic Tribes, and Saxons. The map will span from western Ireland to Kiev in Rus, and from Iceland to Southern Britain. Each of the playable factions has a goal. For example, if you start out as a Norwegian, you are to raid Scotland and Ireland, and eventually establish the city of Dublin, while a Dane would raid along the English coast, with the ultimate goal of establishing York.

*Planned playable factions

Planned Features
A naval combat system, similar (or borrowed, with Yoshi's permission) to the combat system in the Pirates! mod.
Historically accurate weapons, armour, and ships.
A system of settlement.
A system of raiding monestaries or villages.
A new form of arena, consisting of one-on-one honour-fights with highly skilled NPCs. The name of this has slipped my mind at the moment, but I'll update this when I remember.
And much, much more...

Progress

The mod is still very much in the concept stage, but is welcoming historical advisers, modelers, scene-makers, concept artists, and coders.

 

[Chilly5]

A viking mod? Good idea, cant believe something like this was never started before, well good luck with it (what happened to 0 AD and that cradle of civ thing?) if you need anything of me just hollar.

 

[miber]

Good luck on this. Big fan of vikings/norse mythology and such, and always wanted to see a mod made for them. 

A new form of arena, consisting of one-on-one honour-fights with highly skilled NPCs. The name of this has slipped my mind at the moment, but I'll update this when I remember.

Holmgang?

 

[Hallequin]

I think you should add the Baltic tribes on the eastern coast of the Baltic sea... I could help a lot with the historical stuff for them.

 

[Matheus]

Good idea! Once 1066 is paid, I think we need a viking mod.
Good luck!

 

[Kissaki]

Hmmm, could have potential. Just remember that the Viking Age "officially" began in 793, with the raid on Lindisfarne, so 6th century is a bit early. You could still use that timeframe, however, but weaponry was significantly different that early on (the finds consist mainly of seaxes -- the Frankish type of sword that became famous as a viking sword appeared somewhere around 8th/9th century). But by setting the period earlier than even Merovingian period (7th-8th centuries), you do at least get to legitimately use the "Nordic helmet" -- which is not actually a viking style helmet at all.

 

[stoned-dude]

take whatever viking weapons you'd like from the stoned weaponpack; it contains some axes and swords

 

[Worbah]

I will give you my firstborn. 8P~~

 

[Yoshiboy]

You can defiantly borrow the combat system from pirates. I'll help you to adapt it.

 

[nijis]

Brilliant -- anything you might need, I'd like to help. I have some hulls from the Sicily mod loosely based on the Gokstad ship with which you're welcome to play around, and would be delighted to try to make some other nautical items.

I had given a lot of thought as to what naval combat in that period might be like, and I was actually rather hard-pressed to come up with any ideas of how to make it interesting using the M&B setting. Aside from the frantic melee fighting that breaks out when two ships slam together, it would seem that the most challenging part would be to try and gauge wind, currents, and one's oarsmen's endurance while chasing enemy vessels. I suppose one could play around with the party_set_morale function to adjust ship speed. Anyway, I really look forward to seeing how you're going to approach this, and any way I can help, let me know.

 

[Tuckles]

<3<3<3<3 joo.

Anyway,

Awesome sounding mod, definately something to look out for.

Naval System (Yoshi's said shoor) </>

Historically Accurate Weapons and Armors (Lots of History buffs in the MnB Forums/Stoned-Dude's pack-o-weapons) </>

Settlement System (Something like ASLOW?) </> (Cities out of nothing?) <x>

Monastery/Village Raiding (Something like 1066? I'm not sure if they give away code) <?>

Arena Fights (Possible, Probably not that hard to do) <?>

And much much more... (much much? or much much much2?) <x>

 

[Oldtimer]

Brilliant -- anything you might need, I'd like to help. I have some hulls from the Sicily mod loosely based on the Gokstad ship with which you're welcome to play around, and would be delighted to try to make some other nautical items.

I had given a lot of thought as to what naval combat in that period might be like, and I was actually rather hard-pressed to come up with any ideas of how to make it interesting using the M&B setting. Aside from the frantic melee fighting that breaks out when two ships slam together, it would seem that the most challenging part would be to try and gauge wind, currents, and one's oarsmen's endurance while chasing enemy vessels. I suppose one could play around with the party_set_morale function to adjust ship speed. Anyway, I really look forward to seeing how you're going to approach this, and any way I can help, let me know.

Hi,

the big difference between naval combat in the Med  and in the North Sea was that in the Med you had ramming, raking and on board artillery with greek fire in some cases. All this very difficult to simulate properly in M&B I fear.
For the North Sea I think that your suggestions are OK. However don`t forget archery and thrown weapons as means to inflict losses before boarding.

Regards, Oldtimer

 

[Monuse]

vikings vikings vikings vikings


hoooorah vikings mod

 

[SharpFish]

The vikings fought at sea basically the same way they fought on land - they met ship to ship in a sort of floating island and butchered one another mercilessly.  There are few accounts of fighting at sea but thats basically how they go; the primary variations are who ambushes who, and who has the most ships.

I don't think the viking ship is really a fighting platform at all, and was mostly a kind fast WW2 landing-craft - its role was to transport combatants to the beach, not to fight in its own right.

 

[nijis]

Wiki mentions four naval battles involving Vikings -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Naval_battles_involving_the_Vikings -- one of which is semi-legendary and the other took place in an estuary. This leaves Svolder and Nesjar. Of course, the actual fighting may have had no resemblance whatsoever to the battles as described in the sagas. Does anyone know if there are plentiful references to other, smaller ship-to-ship battles in the sagas?

 

[SharpFish]

Actually, the most deciding factor über alles whas who had the tallest ships. Those on it would be able to attack downwards, instead of struggling upwards.

Thats the general case for ships with muscle powered missile weapons, yes, but it was not a significant feature, it seems, of Viking tactics.  Certainly they built bigger and taller ships to get precisely this benefit, but they were still building bigger and taller longboats, which were never able to compete against the high-waisted and -castled sailing ships.  It still seems that the main approach was to bring the ships together and fight it out hand to hand, although of course there would be missile exchanges through-out.

 

[Worbah]

oh, and as for the equipment of the finns, the shirts and tunics look pretty much like the ones peoplle wore in those days here. And I do hope Finland is a joinable faction.

 

[Hallequin]

I don't think there should be much more joinable faction than the viking 3, but I hope there would be a lot of options for players who choose to go without one.

Btw, so is anyone seriously going to start this mod or will it just die in its concept stages? That would be very unfortunate, I believe...

 

[Worbah]

Well, the OP has a temp ban for a few weeks or so, so we have to wait.

 

[nijis]

<b>Actually, the most deciding factor über alles whas who had the tallest ships.</b>

Probably. Also, I have no historical evidence whatsoever on this, but I'd think that as small ships can be fairly difficult to control and coordinate, and because most battles were fought close to land where "terrain" like shallows and currents could be decisive, that fleets with more skilled crews could win local superiority against less skilled fleets -- ganging up on stragglers, concentrating against the far end of a line, etc.