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McMonkey and I have had some preliminary discussions about developing a new scenario of the Christian Reconquista of Spain.
There is already a rather good one developed by Jesus Balsinde called “Al-Andalus: Trail of the Sun” which can be found here:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2/down...arios/medieval
This was developed way back in the 90s and is quite good as a single player game. However as a multi-player game, the civilizations are not evenly matched, such that a Moorish human player could easily overrun the Christian players.
I was thinking it would be fun to develop a new version specifically designed for multi-player PBEM, using some of the innovative new techniques developed by McMonkey such a stackable terrain, etc.
The game will center on the struggles over the Iberian peninsula in the late Medieval period between Moors and Christians. The goal of the game is simple: dominate the Iberian Peninsula. Each player (Moor or Christian) needs to amass the greatest number of objective cities, whoever that is wins, this will allow plenty of tension between each of the Christian factions and allow for plenty of historically accurate in-fighting between them.
To balance the sides, I think it would be best to start the game sometime in the period between 1060 -1160 AD. This is the period when the Christian nations were beginning to get their act together and really challenge the Moors in Spain.
I am not entirely sure whether an early start (1050) or a late start (1150) would be best and would like some input from others on this matter.
This interactive map that I made will help to understand the political situations at the mid 11th and 12th centuries:
http://explorethemed.com/Reconquista.asp?c=1
Click on the option for 1036 AD and 1162 AD to see the political situation at these two times. FYI you can also click on the cities and battles and stuff to see wikipedia links.
Early Start – circa 1050 AD
The disadvantage of the early start (1050) is that in this period the Moors were divided into many small independent Taifa kingdoms. It would be a little lame to simply lump all these independent political entities into a single human player slot called “The Moors”.
Furthermore, the Christian Kingdoms were divided in a way that would not last long, Catalonia was still an independent Kingdom rather than simply a County of Aragon, Aragon was tiny and not of much importance, and Portugal did not even exist yet.
The advantage of the early start is that this is the time of the campaigns of El CID, which would be interesting. El CID could be an event created special unit with exceedingly strong attack and defense.
To simulate that El CID historically fought for many factions (Aragon, Castile, and even the Moors against Christians) during his long career, this unit could be bribed, or perhaps its destruction would trigger a newly created “El Cid” in the capital city of the civ that killed the old “El Cid” unit.
Late Start – circa 1150 AD
The main advantage of the late start is that all the main players of the Reconquista have already been formed by this time. Portugal is already an independent and powerful entity and the Kingdom of Aragon is also already a major player, having annexed all of Catalonia and conquered Zaragosa. This means you have 7 rather evenly matched possible human players: 5 Christian (Portugal, Leon, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon) and 2 Islamic (the Almohads and the Taifa of Murcia).*
The main disadvantage of this time is that El Cid is long deceased, but maybe it would be difficult to simulate the campaigns of El Cid in an exciting and yet fair way for all human players anyway. Besides, some preliminary research has yielded a number of appropriate “hero units” for the 12th century as well.
*Well, not quite, you will note when looking at the map that Navarre is considerably weaker than the other factions and to top it off, they do not share a border with a Moorish nation and thus cannot easily team up with a stronger Christian nation for the Re-conquest. Therefore it might be better to leave Navarre as a non-playable civ, or simply Barbarian. Which would leave on extra slot open??
Any advice and ideas will be warmly welcomed.
There is already a rather good one developed by Jesus Balsinde called “Al-Andalus: Trail of the Sun” which can be found here:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2/down...arios/medieval
This was developed way back in the 90s and is quite good as a single player game. However as a multi-player game, the civilizations are not evenly matched, such that a Moorish human player could easily overrun the Christian players.
I was thinking it would be fun to develop a new version specifically designed for multi-player PBEM, using some of the innovative new techniques developed by McMonkey such a stackable terrain, etc.
The game will center on the struggles over the Iberian peninsula in the late Medieval period between Moors and Christians. The goal of the game is simple: dominate the Iberian Peninsula. Each player (Moor or Christian) needs to amass the greatest number of objective cities, whoever that is wins, this will allow plenty of tension between each of the Christian factions and allow for plenty of historically accurate in-fighting between them.
To balance the sides, I think it would be best to start the game sometime in the period between 1060 -1160 AD. This is the period when the Christian nations were beginning to get their act together and really challenge the Moors in Spain.
I am not entirely sure whether an early start (1050) or a late start (1150) would be best and would like some input from others on this matter.
This interactive map that I made will help to understand the political situations at the mid 11th and 12th centuries:
http://explorethemed.com/Reconquista.asp?c=1
Click on the option for 1036 AD and 1162 AD to see the political situation at these two times. FYI you can also click on the cities and battles and stuff to see wikipedia links.
Early Start – circa 1050 AD
The disadvantage of the early start (1050) is that in this period the Moors were divided into many small independent Taifa kingdoms. It would be a little lame to simply lump all these independent political entities into a single human player slot called “The Moors”.
Furthermore, the Christian Kingdoms were divided in a way that would not last long, Catalonia was still an independent Kingdom rather than simply a County of Aragon, Aragon was tiny and not of much importance, and Portugal did not even exist yet.
The advantage of the early start is that this is the time of the campaigns of El CID, which would be interesting. El CID could be an event created special unit with exceedingly strong attack and defense.
To simulate that El CID historically fought for many factions (Aragon, Castile, and even the Moors against Christians) during his long career, this unit could be bribed, or perhaps its destruction would trigger a newly created “El Cid” in the capital city of the civ that killed the old “El Cid” unit.
Late Start – circa 1150 AD
The main advantage of the late start is that all the main players of the Reconquista have already been formed by this time. Portugal is already an independent and powerful entity and the Kingdom of Aragon is also already a major player, having annexed all of Catalonia and conquered Zaragosa. This means you have 7 rather evenly matched possible human players: 5 Christian (Portugal, Leon, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon) and 2 Islamic (the Almohads and the Taifa of Murcia).*
The main disadvantage of this time is that El Cid is long deceased, but maybe it would be difficult to simulate the campaigns of El Cid in an exciting and yet fair way for all human players anyway. Besides, some preliminary research has yielded a number of appropriate “hero units” for the 12th century as well.
*Well, not quite, you will note when looking at the map that Navarre is considerably weaker than the other factions and to top it off, they do not share a border with a Moorish nation and thus cannot easily team up with a stronger Christian nation for the Re-conquest. Therefore it might be better to leave Navarre as a non-playable civ, or simply Barbarian. Which would leave on extra slot open??
Any advice and ideas will be warmly welcomed.
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