Dark Ages of Calradia ( Dead )

[Scion]

Sand, fields, cracked skulls stained in blood. Dark Ages of Calradia is a large modification of Mount & Blade, set in the lands of Calradia many centuries before what we know as the native Calradia found in the original version.

The situation is tense, the swadian intruders have grown strong and are threatening the Calradian alliance from the north-west. The primitive khudans are literally tearing eastern Calradia down, only held back by the old calradian bloodlust and cynicm the highlander calradians possess. The halfnaked radoghirs, poor and primitive, but large in numbers, have managed to push back the sunonians former advancement - reclaiming the holy desert waste. The radoghir savageness seems to  stand up to the rich and well organized army of the People of Suno. If anybody succeeds to overrun the calradians, the lands of mighty Veluca is what they will stand in front of. Close combat specialists, fighting ancient style, will be an almost impossible task, even for the zealous, fanatical swadians.

It is the dark ages. Choose your side, make your mark on this world. The history of Calradia is written in rivers of blood.






Current projects:

• Writing the History of Calradia
• Graphics: shaders
• Porting from 0.751 to 0.808
• Map

Contributors:

• luigi - thanks for his extensive collection of weapons
• chel - thanks for his 20+ additional horses

Planned integrated mods:

• CraftMod

[Scion]

History of Calradia
Under development


Swadians
Strong, fanatical, heartless, manipulative.

Main leader: The Allfather

From the old coasts of Swadia, Great Mesah landed 16 years ago at the banks of the calradian coast near Tihr. Mesah`s huge army swept over Tihr like an immense wave, making Tihr falling easily into the grip of Mesah. Calradia was hit hard by the loss of her`s prospering trading center, and there was no doubt in Praven that they were dealing with a long planned invasion. When Mesah reached Sargoth few weeks later, they encountered an unexpected, though resistance. Even though swadian soliders claimed both the walls and the main gate of Sargoth, they were outsmarted by Chamon, marshall of Praven. Launching the trap, the majority of the swadians were right down slaughtered. They say Chamon and his men fought so corageous they made Mesah so scared he attempted to escape the final engagement. He died with a calradian spear in his heart, and a staggering fright in his eyes. The walls of Sargoth was still calradian.
Few months later, the kings of old Swadia shipped their forces in even greater numbers under the command of a religious leader named Qidan. His intolerance and cynical values were demonstraded in villages lying towards Sargoth, executing whole populations. This time the swadians faced the calradians at the fields outside of Sargoth, the calradian army lead by the king of Sargoth, the king of Praven, and his two sons. The calradian army cold however not match the professional swadian soliders. First losing, then tragedy, massacre. The walls of Sargoth could not withstand the machinery of war Qidan brought, and this time the city fell. The defender, marshall Chamon, was tortured to death in public few days after the swadian conquest. New Swadia had now a powerful position in Calradia, being a threat to all lands inside the large calradian mountains.
Zin fell five years later into the hands of Samon. The People of Suno, velucans and calradians had to give her up after five hard years of a very bloody war. The grip of the religious around this city.was to be unique and  unmatched in New Swadia; not even the old calradian loyalists in Sargoth faced the perverted destiniy of the average calradian in Zin.

Religious laws were immediately imposed in the whole region after the fall of Zin, by orders from the Allfather of All in Old Swadia. Qidan has, under blessing from both the swadian kings and the Allfather, been set to rule New Swadia.

Allfather is the Allfather of all Calradia. It is a deadly sin to reject the Allmighty and the Allfather, and them who do, should burn a thousand eternities in the flames of hell.



Khudans
Isolated, raiders, nordic, barbaric

Among the new kingdoms in Calradia, the Kingdom of Khuda is the oldest. Over a century ago, north eastern barbarians went from random plundering to warfare. Emerging from across the eastern mountains, they managed to get a foothold in the east-calradian region named Khudan. The barbarians achieved some grotesque victories during the first years, and finally they could establish the Kingdom of Khuda. Khudan kings have never had the ambition, nor personality, to be a large threat to central Calradia. But their soliders are among the most brutal savages known to man. Calradian chiefs have had an ongoing war with the khudan kings since their one century old advancement, and have yet to drive them back into a defensive position.



Map
This is under development and experimental.






Very experimental agricultural texture.

[Brigadier Hussey]

Oooh grand are you back to work on the mod now Scion?
SOmebody give that man a sub forum!

[Leprechaun]

Is looking nice!

Woo, first post! Hey all, good luck with your mod, Scion.

[Scion]

Yeah I`ll continue as much as time and motivation permits.

I don`t need a subforum, in fact except from the coolness of having your own subforum, I wouldn`t know what to do with it really. Anyway, I`ll try to keep important updates and previews in my first two posts from now on.

[Fisheye]

Yeah that makes things easier to find.

Really looking forward to the artwork on this one.

[Scion]

Good to see you here, fisheye!

I`m seriously thinking about integrating Craftmod into Dark Ages of Calradia. Winter has pretty much granted me access to the whole mod, and will even be helping me out with implementing it. Some stuff to note:

• The items available to craft is unique from the other items in the mod.
• It will be a submod, unconnected to the rest of the mod, plot etc. The one thing is resources, which I haven`t totally worked out how to do in DAOC.

Feel free to argument whether the mod or parts of the mod doesn`t fit into Dark Ages of Calradia. Me for once think it`s an exciting idea, giving a great starting point from adding the depth I so deeply desire for this mod.

[Forral]

Feel free to argument whether the mod or parts of the mod doesn`t fit into Dark Ages of Calradia. Me for once think it`s an exciting idea, giving a great starting point from adding the depth I so deeply desire for this mod.

I think it would fit rather well in. At least the *crafting* part of it.

I have some suspicion that the gathering of resources, such as mining, woodchopping and the like, might be a tad unsuited to the setting however. I'd instead suggest that these resources are randomly dropped by caravans and the like instead, keeping on with the more brutal feeling of the game where you'd be forced to seek these resources by hunting down caravans to fund your crafting efforts.

Perhaps these Caravan Drops don't even need to be random, but caravans carrying specific goods could transport these items between the cities. You would then have the opportunity to track down and destroy these specific caravans that carry the items you need. That would add another strategic layer to the otherwise random brutal layer.

Of course these crafting supplies could also be sold in stores. Either way, I'm not perfectly certain that the gathering of raw material would suit whole dark feeling of the mod.

I may be wrong, but that's my two cents.

Edit: And keeping on with your suggestion to have the crafting gameplay separate from the other gameplay, I'd guess that the crafting supplies dropped by the caravans could be used as normal trading commodities for those that have no interest in using them for crafting. Preferably, like in vanilla, with a varying range of cost in the different towns and cities.

-Forral-

[Scion]

Thanks for those two, I agree with all of it. I have already, before considering CraftMod, implemented resources as Wood Camps, Iron Mine ++ where they have a number of people, a production rate etc, and they will send a resource train from the resource to the city with a load of this resource, for example wood. This could be where to get it. Or a caravan, they sometimes ship raw materials between cities. This has already been implemented. 

My main concern with the original woodchopping and resource gathering in CraftMod will turn down the large-scale feeling it is supposed to have. Still, wood chopping in particular would be fully possible to carry out realistically. To make that one thing you need instead of raiding a wood camp with a medium army to get that one shaft 

What I will do is go for the crafting and put the resource gathering on hold; probably find an alternative way to find the resources.


Another big question is how to do the cities. As in I want the cities to feel huge, yet I want them to be attackable. I want it all  As I see it I have two possibilities:

• One large scene. Will lag on older graphic cards, especially city fights, but gives the best results and is fast to implement.

Or a mix of the two, but this is a difficult issue. In Medieval Total War 2 they have a decent playable size on cities when you attack them, yet they are unrealistically small for their population numbers. But still, that might be the right way; to make them large enough in one scene. This will cause lag on the more unfortunate machines but might also give better results.

[Forral]

Another big question is how to do the cities. As in I want the cities to feel huge, yet I want them to be attackable. I want it all  As I see it I have two possibilities:

• One large scene. Will lag on older graphic cards, especially city fights, but gives the best results and is fast to implement.

Or a mix of the two, but this is a difficult issue. In Medieval Total War 2 they have a decent playable size on cities when you attack them, yet they are unrealistically small for their population numbers. But still, that might be the right way; to make them large enough in one scene. This will cause lag on the more unfortunate machines but might also give better results.

In order to have a siege that feels huge, and still works decently in concerns for both AI and Framerate I'd suggest that the player only participates in a part of it, or let it be played in stages such as the siege in Storymod, or with a choice of a position to take in the battle, such as the castle defence - also found in storymod.

If we use a common scenario, where ladders are placed against the walls, doors are being hammered down by battering rams and chunks of stuff are thrown into the city by massive war machines. It's impossible to properly portray all of that within the scope of a single M&B battle.

However..!

Letting the player take part in scaling the walls and fighting from ladders is possible.

Letting the player fight through the gatehouse after the gates are breached is also possible.

Having an epic battle through the streets of the city, ending a large bloodbath in the city centre works as well.

Either way, with the current state of M&B AI, and graphics I don't know if it's practical to attempt a full scale siege that's supposed to work dynamically within a war system.

Were it up to me, I'd go for a scenario where you lead your forces through the already breached gates in a fight to reach the center city (Think, Total War). That seems like a good plan considering your Swadian history story too, and seems like one of those things that are the most practical for the AI and the battle dynamics.

-Forral-

[Scion]

Hm wonderful idea. I can see it now, I haven`t played too many other mods since I started modding so I am sort of not-up-to-date. It could be menu driven; the attacking of walls and gates will probably not be well portrayed anyway. So let`s see at an example scenario.

You hold a siege at Praven; you have 300 men, they have 300.  At attack you get the following menu options:

• Maintain siege till noon. - You maintain the siege for 24 hours. Meanwhile the enemy might decide to attack you; they will then spawn at the city gate and the battle will be in front of the city.
• Attack walls - There will be one ladder for, say, each 30 men. Relative to your army size. Casualties and the outcome is computed, but if you manage to take the walls the battle will begin at the top of the wall (you lead one "ladder").
• Attack the gates - With a ram. Casualties is computed, but if you manage to open the gates, the battle will start there.

Building of siege weapons should probably also be a part of the menu system. They have a completed percent, and when they`re done, you can use them. War machines can also be brought, like catapults; they will also be menu driven.

But what happen when the walls are taken? You stand in the main street, maybe you wish to take another route. Maybe another menu should appear.

• March towards town center
• March through slum quarters

I`m not sure about this.

Anyway, in the end you should enter the castle and fight your way through the guards. Finally you will face the city gouvenor; he will not fight but you will have to talk to him. Here you can decide different outcomes: killing him, prisoning him, torture him, executing him publicly or letting him live. When this step is finished the city is taken.

When defendig a city, a similar pattern is followed, but it will be more automated because the attacker takes most of the decisions.

[Forral]

You've got a lot on your plate then. Especially if you plan to have various attackable cities and different styles of cities, meaning that the scripts would likely have to be customized for many of them. I remember you saying that scripting is not your main interest, and what you're introducing with those ideas is a whole heap of forking blocks of scripts.

Anyways, I can't judge how much you can handle, but take care, and don't choke yourself with ambition.

That said, your ideas are good, and could no doubt work. I have suspicions that picking various routes to fight through the city might be a tad redundant however. Also, considering the pathfinding of the enemy AI, fighting in the slums might not work very well.

Of course you would not have to portray the slums with winding alleyways, debris and broken buildings, but then having the slums in a battle to begin with would be pointless.

For the sake of gameplay I'd suggest that battles within cities should be played out on wide open streets, plazas and the like, with as few objects as possible to cause problems for the pathfinding.

So picking paths in the city (In battle) isn't something I'd consider worth the trouble.

As for the attack options, where you'd be able to attack the gates or walls and the like - those are good. Barring perhaps the choice to maintain the siege. To me, the arrival of the player and his extra troops at the scene would constitute those additional reinforcements the sieging army needed to assault the city. So, when you get there, there would be no more camping outside the gates - Instead there would be shouting, blood and glory.

-Forral-

[Scion]

Hey, I always choke myself with ambition. My weakness really. But in contrast to other parts of scripting, this one should turn out to be quite fun. As I see it, the main work lies in creation of scenes. But I had in mind making such large cities anyway. While the cities might be quite different from each other, they would in this case be quite generic; you have certain entry points at where troops are spawned (top at the wall, in front of the gate etc). A code should be pretty generic relative to cities.

I agree different routes can be redundant; the basic idea there is to add a choice after you are inside the walls without having the whole city as a scene. It could equally be like in native Zendar, where you meet a wall and can say "travel here" sort of. The amount of strategy here is of course limited, but what I want more than strategy is realism. I *think this is a good way to do it, yet this particular step could easily be swapped with only a "march to city center" choice.

Attacking forts and villages would probably be a reduction of this system. For forts there would be once scene only, for villages not even walls to attack.

As for the attack options, where you'd be able to attack the gates or walls and the like - those are good. Barring perhaps the choice to maintain the siege. To me, the arrival of the player and his extra troops at the scene would constitute those additional reinforcements the sieging army needed to assault the city. So, when you get there, there would be no more camping outside the gates - Instead there would be shouting, blood and glory.

Yes, the question is whether you are the one to hold the siege or you join another party holding the siege. This should be the first thing to be sorted out I guess. Hmm.

[Forral]

True enough. I admit I took for granted that the player and his meagre forces would be too few to conduct an actual siege against a big city. Raiding towns and attacking forts seem like something the player would be able to initiate and conduct on his own, but I assumed that sieges would only be done after a friendly siege party had reached the hostile city and besieged it for a while.

-Forral-

[Scion]

Okay, then I see. Well, a lot of plans assumes that the player can lead a siege and a big army. If you have a small amount of men attacking a heavily defended city, you will generally be slaughtered before you can overtake the walls. From the stats I`m planning, you won`t be able to solo a huge defending city for yourself anyway    so it is your (stupid) decision to attack havily defended Veluca with your ten militia guys.  But still, guess you should have the choice.