Cross&Crescent update...

[Fiera]

Originally posted by BeBro
BTW, shouldn´t Fiera´s "Castile and Aragon" fill this gap?

It should , but regretably I never got to finsih it. However, I made a nice art set including Christian and Musilm units and cities. Just drop me a line if you're interested in these.

PS: Looking forward to your C&C update. After, SubWar, I felt this had to be your next work...

[Fiera]

Hey, the Iberia/North Africa screenshot is now gone!

[Goingonit]

Are you sure that there shouldn't be more population in western France and Normandy? I'd be very interested to know where you got your city size #'s, as I ab designing a scen for the same period.

[Case]

In relation to what Goingonit said, BreBro I'd recomend that you increase the number of cities in the scenario (I find scenarios with lots of cities to be more fast-paced and interesting).

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by BeBro


I just uploaded the last three pics in standard zoom Please press reload if your browser shows still the old pics

They show some of the new city styles. The units displayed are especially placed for this preview - means that some of them are not available from the beginning on. Also initial city sizes may be changed abit finally.

JayBee, perhaps, I have to think it over...

Yes, much better now, thanks.

I have to disagree about more cities, I find it more challenging to start with 5-10 cities, and have to build from there.

Scenarios with 200+ cities take FOREVER to play, and really aern't fun at all, with hundreds of units lurking about.

Plus the AI also takes scades of time to move, it's just not a great experience for me.

[BeBMan]

Case, to the cities: I agree with Chris here.

It would also be very unrealistic to have Northern and Western Europe full of cities, because most of the cities at that time were only better market places. In the 10th century only Italian cities were generally a bit bigger, but even Rome was much smaller than to its best ancient times.

Many of todays cities in central europe were founded later. Perhaps I will place another city here or there, but generally you´ll not start with a big empire - compared with the Arab civs or Byzantium, most European powers were weaker in every field.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Goingonit
I'd be very interested to know where you got your city size #'s, as I ab designing a scen for the same period.

For the citiy sizes, I have no real sizes available, but I have a book that shows which cities were visited more or less often by some HRE emperors. So I made the city sizes after the importance of a certain city.

Since there were no real capitals around 955AD, I made the several residential cities (e.g. Aachen, or Magdeburg) a bit bigger.

But I may change alll city sizes slightly before the release, the sizes you see on the pics are only the first try.

[Prometeus]

Roads attached here, Bernd!

PS How do you think to deal with the great Slavian revolt in 983?

[BeBMan]

Thanks

And currently I´m not sure what to include in the events, there is much to cover - Viking and Magyar raids, Conflicts with North Italian cities and/or the pope, Normans in Northern France and England, Seldjuk attacks on Byzantium, Crusades, Reconquista, Teutonic Knights in Eastern Europe, Mongol invasions- these are only the biggest things...

I think it would also not make sense to me to simulate it all with events. Perhaps I will have e.g. the first crusade to create some Christian cities in the ME, but creating all followin crusades and the four crusader states exactly seems not possible. I probably will let the Arabs retake Jerusalem in 1187, so then has the player to make his own crudsade, the other crusades would be only text messages.
Reconquista is even more complicated...

I´m pretty far with gfx, map, cities etc, but the events need the most work. I´ll see what I can do with three events files (hope I don´t need more)...

[Prometeus]

I supposed that... i dropped it in by purpose... Anyway, i think you should include slavians and Balts in your scen... remeber? the great Northern Crusade against slavians proclamed in 1137 by Bernard de Clairvaux?

[BeBMan]

Hehehe...
But yes, some events to "crusades" against so-called heretics in Europe could also be in.

[Prometeus]

Got a nice comics' pic about St Malo in Bretagne... I'll scan it asap and post it here.

[Prometeus]

Merde... lost the comics' book... Got only a pic about St Malo harbour...

[St Leo]

1) An extremely powerful Arab civ sounds just right to me on this setting

I think that Arabs were already declining in military terms by the start of this scenario.

[Fiera]

Oh, Bernd, after looking closely at your map, I think you haven't included Seville. Either that or you've placed it where Cádiz really is.

Seville soon overwhelmed Córdoba in importance, after the Córdoba Caliphate decadency. As a matter of a fact, I think it was Spain's (and one of Europe's) biggest city from circa 1100 on, bigger than any of the Christian cities, including Barcelona.