Ladies and gentlemen, fans of the Middle Ages, I present to you the complete preview of our ambitious project,

the War of the West! Our team is proud to display many of our mods features to you today! Take note of the fact that this is quite a long read prior to starting!

Introduction to the Mod

War of the West is a mod centered on Western Europe, much like Broken Crescent is centered on the Middle East and the Far East. The events of this mod take place from the 13th to the 15th Centuries, which will be encompassed in two distinct campaigns. The first campaign, called War of the West: Britannia, starts in 1245 and ends in 1315, and the other campaign, War of the West: The Golden Age, starts in 1245 and ends in 1454. The Britannia Campaign features 4 Turns per Year and the Golden Age Grand

Campaign features 2 Turns per Year. Because of this, the modification will give the player the opportunity to experience the seasons, as well as develop an attachment to his or her characters and technologies. This mod has three goals: historical accuracy, challenging gameplay and innovation. Expect difficulties and restrictions to the player since, as you know, the initial version of Medieval 2: Total War was far too easy.

The Map
When we initially began this project, we already had a workable map template. Unfortunately, some things have changed; as the map files were, for some reason, corrupted. But now it doesnt matter, our mappers have created a new, more ambitious map with even more regions.

The campaign map will contain 150 accurate settlements and preplaced permanent stone forts (details on this are available in the Permanent Stone Forts section).

The Factions
Please note that the factions featured in the War of the West will be differentiated by campaign (certain factions wont be featured in both campaigns). The following factions will be featured in the War of the West:

Kingdom of England - Kingdom of England Kingdom of Scotland - Roghachd na h-Alba House of ONeill - U Nill Principalty of Wales - Tywysogaeth Cymru Kingdom of Norway - Kongeriket Norge Kingdom of Denmark - Kongeriget Danmark Kingdom of Sweden - Konungariket Sverige Kingdom of France - Royaume de France Duchy of Brittany - Duch de Bretagne County of Flanders - Graafschap Vlaanderen Duchy of Burgundy - Duch de Bourgogne Swiss Confederacy - Eidgenossenschaft Holy Roman Empire - Heiliges Rmisches Reich Duchy of Austria - Erzherzogtum sterreich Kingdom of Bohemia - Knigreich Bhmen Crown of Castille - Corona de Castilla Crown of Aragon - Corona d'Aragn Kingdom of Navarre - Nafarroako Erresuma

Republic of Venice - Repubblica di Venezia Republic of Pisa - Repubblica di Pisa Republic of Florence - Repubblica Fiorentina Commune of Genoa Comune di Genova

The Main Features

The War of the West has several new features that will almost entirely revamp the existing vanilla version.

Culture The War of the West replaces religion with culture. The primary reason is that all the featured factions were Catholic (until Renaissance, when different religious movements occurred), but they were culturally different. Culture will be linked with the recruitment, public order, and a few optional building features. Certain units will require a specific cultural percentage in order to be recruitable, just like the recruitment system featured in the Britannia campaign. There will be a total of ten cultures: Germanic Spanish Italian Scandinavian

 Mediterranean Gaelic English French Baltic Other

Each faction will possess a primary culture. Certain factions will have a secondary culture, the propagation of which may up special features, but restrict others. For example, the Duchy of Brittany will have access to more longbowmen if they spread more English culture in their regions, and if they spread more French culture, they will have access to more cavalry.

One Settlement Type This mod does not include castle settlement types. Here are some reasons for that alteration:

More fluid customization of settlements (this will be expounded upon further in the preview) Ease of modding buildings. Better AI functionality. Better regional representation.

 More historically accurate (many cities often featured interior castles).

We will also create new strat models to represent the new settlement types, along with new battlemaps that feature castles within cities.

Recruitment This mod is not easy; even hardcore gamers will be challenged. No longer will you have a single settlement that can create army after army. No longer will you have plenty of reserve units in your settlements. There will be several restrictions in place that will provide for more, balanced armies and less, overexaggerated, elite armies.

First, lets look into unit recruitment and organization. I invite you to take a look at my current unit guideline (MUG). This link will provide more information: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=466086

Area of Recruitment System

Conquering factions will have the opportunity to recruit the units of other factions in their native lands, as long the percentage of that factions culture is sufficient to make them available. That being said, the refill rate and unit pool size will be reduced for conquering factions, as some natives would naturally be unwilling to fight for their conquerors.

Let's use Ireland as an example. The Ceitheirne will be able to be recruited in the largest abundance in Ireland by the Irish faction. If Ireland captured London, the Irish faction would be unable to recruit Ceitheirne until the Irish culture was at a high enough level. Until the Irish are able to raise their culture to that point, however, Ireland will be able to recruit levied Longbowmen, as the English culture would be high enough to do so.

So basically, this is an Area of Recruitment system coupled with cultural requirements. Lesser soldiers require lower levels of culture, while higher quality soldiers require a higher cultural percentage. As it is, the system works very well, and will provide conquering factions with incentives to conquer certain factions and to preserve their cultures.

Unit Categories

The following is an overview of unit categories:

Feudal Levies Feudal Levies were conscripts who served as foot soldiers summoned by a local lord or by the sovereign. These men were usually required to arm themselves in accordance to their wealth, either as light infantry with a bow or spear, or as medium infantry with heavier equipment. The length of service in the field carried out by these forces varied slightly from country to country, but on average their length of service was limited to forty days. This service could be extended by paying the troops, although many were reluctant to stay away from their lands for long periods of time and this made it exceedingly difficult to field an army of these men for any length of time. Usually, the Feudal Levies were used in emergency situations, such as the French Arrire-Ban organization.

Warrior Levies Compared to the Feudal Levies, who were generally used in emergencies, the Warrior Levies were a conscripted and organized soldiery found in cultures that were more military inclined, and were used as the bulk of most of their armies. As with the Feudal Levies, these men had to provide their own equipment, but, since they are from a more militaristic culture,

they would often get equipment from loot and spoils of wars. Due to their militaristic orientation, this type of levy would be much more effective than their feudal counterparts.

For recruitment, the Levy categories have the best refill rate and unit pool size in game. To recruit these units, a specific percentage of your factions culture will be required. These units will have their fullest availability in their native lands, and outside of these lands their availability will slightly be diminished and will require a larger percentage of your factions culture.

Regulars Regulars are an all-encompassing unit type, which represent men who made a living out of waging war. Regulars could be partially or fully employed, and could be paid either by the crown or by a local lord. Although they were regularly paid (and well paid), loot and plunder were supplementary of their salary. However, since military campaigns were temporary, their employer would often dismiss these men, who would then use their equipment and money to search for another employer who was ready to purchase their services. As such, this class was mostly encompassed by mercenaries. They were highly disciplined, as disciplined as was needed to earn their wage. Their training and equipment varied greatly from culture to culture. Their

equipment was also highly dependent on their personal wealth, in stark contrast to Militia and Sergeants who are often equipped by the crown.

Regulars will be an interesting choice when planning a military campaign, as recruiting them provides easy access to professional soldiers. No cultural percentage is required to recruit Regulars. And, while they are cheap to recruit, they have an expensive upkeep. In fact, their unit cost will be equal to their upkeep cost because, when you sign a mercenary contract, you are already paying them a trimester wage. Regulars are worthy units in the short term, but should be disbanded when there's no war to be fought, as they will constantly drain your royal coffers while garrisoning a job that militiamen can do on the cheap.

The Regulars are excluded from the Recruitment Limitation feature (this will be further explained in the future), therefore you can recruit these men and it will not count towards your army size limit or affect your population! Certain Regulars are available only in specific regions, such as the the Galloglagh, that can only be recruited in the Hebridean isles. Conquering certain regions will give you access certain mercenaries.

Theres another very special feature that certain Regular units have; recruitment access via Alliances! This will enable Allied factions to recruit a faction specific Regular unit. The unit will be recruitable as long as the alliance is maintained.

There is also another option to gain access to that unit is when the Regulars owner is eliminated. Upon such a case, that unit will be accessible to any and all factions that hold region(s) native to that unit.

Household Nobles The knight in shining armour leading a cavalry charge against the enemy is a good depiction of the Household Nobles. The Household Nobles were major landowners who were vassals of the sovereign. When the king ordered the "Call-to-Arms" or similar order in which force-readied men to go at war, the nobles would answer the call. On some occasions, they would prefer not to answer it and instead paid a fine (or scuttage tax) so the sovereign could hire mercenaries or other armed bodies in their stead. When summoned, the noble would form what was called a "retinue", which was compromised of the noble and his servants, armed and ready for battle. As with the Sergeant-at-Arms, the Household Nobles have access to high quality equipment, often equipped with the latest armaments. Each culture has their own

method, but generally, the Household Nobles were the ones who lead the heavy cavalry and/or heavy infantry.

These are the elite units of your kingdom, and every faction has a unique set of Household Nobles that will lead your army into battle. The mere presence of these men on the battlefield is a great inspiration to lesser men, and therefore, nearby units will get a morale bonus until the nobles die or flee. These units are usually the strongest units available to a faction, having access to the finest equipment and training available, and therefore have the best stats. That being said, the Household Nobles are rare, quite rare. A single unit of knights needs to be treasured, losing even one unit can be disastrous for your army, as they are not only rare, but their availability and refill rate is very low. You will have to keep an eye on these units in battle if you want to have an advantage over your enemy. As far as recruitment is concerned, the nobles also require a certain amount of cultural percentage. When a conquering faction establishes a hold over a region, it needs a good establishment of authority and new public order to grant lands to nobles. The Household Nobles are also quite expensive, as these knights are summoned rather than trained, and they will have an accordingly high upkeep cost. As was true of the Regulars, keeping these men in pay when not at war is both unnecessary and costly.

Sergeants-at-Arms Sergeants-at-Arms are members of the royal bodyguard. Selected for their battle prowess and loyalty to the kingdom, these men perform several tasks, such as guarding an important figure, carrying out orders on the battlefield, leading men, and forming an elite body of trained soldiers. Equipped by the sovereign himself, the Sergeants-at-Arms have the finest and latest equipment available to the kingdom.

This unit type comprises your Generals bodyguards. This unit is much smaller than in vanilla, but they are still very powerful soldiers, disciplined and loyal till death. They have no upkeep cost, and the player will be able to recruit generals from educative buildings. Generals will also get either a military or administrative education depending of their way of learning and where they were educated.

The Sergeants are sub-tenants who hold less property than do Household Nobles; squires, petty knights and rich Burghers are legible to be part of this category. The Sergeants were the class of professional soldiery raised by the king, not by local lords. Until the emergence of standing armies, the Sergeants formed the nucleus of professional armies. They were equipped in the same manner as Household Nobles, but in slightly lesser quality.

Generally very disciplined and loyal, they were well trained and equipped, at cost to the king, who would raise royal taxes to maintain these armed bodies.

The Sergeants are, in other words, the royal standing army of a kingdom. Very few factions will possess a great variety or availability of this type of unit type to start. They will have a high unit cost, but a fairly low upkeep. Sergeants will eventually be more available and varied the further a player gets into the game, as this unit type was slowly incorporated from a minimal role in feudal armies to a more prominent role in national standing armies. The Sergeants will also require more than one turn to recruit; this is to simulate the required training needed to field the unit. Infantry Sergeants will have lower recruiting time than do Mounted Sergeants. Only settlements of the Military Development type will have access to them (more on this later).

Recruitment Limitation We will be adding an existing submod called Recruitment Limitation, created by Tsarsies for Stainless Steel quite some time ago. This brilliant modification will severely increase gameplay challenge. Heres the original thread, http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=165287, but lets break this down anyways, shall we?

 This modification will prevent the player from creating an endless number of large armies. A predetermined army size limit will be in effect that will increase or decrease based on the size of your kingdom. The bigger your kingdom is, the more armed men you can produce and vice-versa. Secondly, when you recruit and train a unit, the population of your settlement will be reduced by the type of unit (a la Rome Total War). Now you will have to think twice about recruiting cannon fodder. Dead men cant be retrained; if you want to retrain your units, then your population will be further reduced. And lastly, theres only one type of unit that will not affect your population: mercenaries. This will incentivize the recruitment of mercenaries, mercenaries who will provide you with instantaneous, decent quality, extra soldiers for a price. This feature will not restrict the AI whatsoever. They will be able to recruit any number of units they wish and it wont affect their population. Unfair? No, not really. You already have an unfair advantage over the AI: a brain.

Periodic Recruitment All the units in War of the West are completely accurate; this extends to the era in which they are recruitable. Certain units will

be unavailable until the proper historical event transpires. For example, England will only gain access to Yeoman Archers after The Archery Law Event (in 1272) transpires.

Replenishment and size of the Unit Pool A units replenishment rate and unit pool size is determined by its unit category. There are 7 types of unit categories in the War of the West; Sergeants-at-Arms, Household Nobles, Sergeants, Regulars, Urban Militia, Warrior Levies and Feudal Levies (explained above). (#4) The size and replenishment rate have been greatly reduced; the maximum unit size limit is 3 and the replenishment rate can vary between 2 to as many as 30 turns (again depending on the unit category). Surprising? This is to force the player to use all his resources to build a large army, in effect removing the one settlement army factory. The rarer units are indeed the strongest and they must be used wisely, otherwise, you will have to wait for some time before you can raise a new one (particularly knights!)

Mercenaries Mercenaries were an integral part of most Western armies. The first thing we have changed about mercenaries is there

recruitment, and their unit upkeep costs. They will be increase drastically from vanilla. Most mercenaries are Regulars, but a few rare units can be an exception to this rule. Mercenaries will no longer be recruitable from the Campaign Map; they can only be recruited from settlements. The main reason for this is historical accuracy: most mercenaries moved between large urban settlements to offer their services to the highest bidder (rather than standing in the middle of forests and mountains, as they seem to do in vanilla). Still, under certain conditions (particularly sieges) mercenaries will be recruitable during the siege for both sides (the besiegers and the besieged). And, as was mentioned above, they will not be affected by the Recruitment limitation system, making mercenaries an interesting option for extended military campaigns.

Desertion Script This script will be devastating if you fail to pay attention to your funds and income. If you go bankrupt, all Regulars (mercenaries) will be disbanded right away from your armies and settlements.

Since you can no longer pay them, the mercenaries will simply move on to be hired by a wealthier employer.

Permanent Stone Forts and their characteristics

Since the games engine has certain limitations, we have bypassed the hardcoded regional limitations by adding Permanent Stone Forts (PSFs). The PSFs will have distinct types that will affect the game in their own way. There will be three types of PSFs; Villages, Fortified Ports and Castles. Each region will be represented with a capital, much like in Empire Total War. These satellite settlements will provide various advantages to the capital of the region.

Villages Villages are a PSF that will provide food production to the capital of their region. Each village will provide +2 Food Production to a settlement. Each region may have up to 2 villages at one time. As long the owner of the capital holds the village(s), that capital will receive bonus food production from these settlements. If an enemy captures a village, the conqueror will not have any benefits until he captures the capital, but by doing so he strips the owner of his regional capitals bonus food production. Villages will not be heavily defended, and will only have simple wooden

palisade wall for protection on the Battle Map. These PSFs are key targets for a regions development as well a tactical target for invading armies. Certain buildings will be available to the capital only if they hold at least one village. This represents a regions need for an increase in agricultural technology, food production, and food quality.

Fortified Ports Fortified Ports are PSFs that are on ports and protect sea trade from enemies. Controlling a Fortified Port will provide additional health and sea trade bonuses for the regional capital. If an enemy captures the port, the capital will not be able to build ships and their sea trade will be blocked, just like when ships blockade ports in vanilla.

Castles Castles will provide additional defences to the region; castles were usually built in strategic positions to disturb aggressive enemy advances. The regional capital will also receive an increased professional unit production rate as long as the owner holds the castle. If an enemy captures the castle, the unit production bonus will be no longer be available to the capital and the original owner will lose an important military outpost.

Building and Development

The War of the West is more than a simple retexture of unit rosters and factions. We have totally overhauled the way in which your settlements develop, faction development, building trees. We have completely redone the building browser, by including new buildings and adjusting existing ones. When you combine this with the new Development Path, each campaign will be unique!

Over 60 new and redeveloped building trees, with more than 100 different buildings have been added. We have given each building tree their own unique advantages and disadvantages; some may be limited, but will grant additional advantages to the settlement. It should be noted that we also took the time to redesign building icons, as well.

The Settlement Paths

This is one of most important features of the War of the West. The regional capital will be able to specialize in one of three developmental paths. Each path will provide individual advantages and disadvantages. Not only will this be more historically accurate, but it will provide the player with a greater

sense of immersion (and will give the campaign role-playing elements to boot). Each campaign will be unique; it will depend on how you choose to develop your settlements.

Each settlement will have to choose between three developmental paths; Militaristic, Cultural or Economic Development. Its important to note that once you choose a path, you will be unable to change to another path (though there will be an exception for faction capitals, but that will be discussed later).

Military Development This path will make the settlement a military center, providing bonuses to professional unit recruitment, along with increased experience and morale to your units. This path will enable the settlement to train Sergeants and Standing Armies (discussed later in the Unit Category section). In the early period, this settlement type can be beneficial to certain factions or completely useless to others, as national standing armies were more prevalent in the 14th century onwards. This settlement will also have limited access to economical, educative, cultural, and entertainment related buildings.

Economical Development

As the name implies, settlements of this type will become economic powerhouses and trade hubs. It will provide semiprofessional, strong units, generally of a mercenary background. This settlement path will be of obvious importance, for what is an army without the money needed to pay its soldiers? Decadence and corruption will be common problems for this settlement path. Managing these settlements will provide quite a challenge, but if you become masterful in controlling them, the advantage provided by economic settlements will be incomparable!

Cultural Development A center of knowledge, late technology and great advancement, this path will give you access to the highest levels of education, administrative, technology related buildings. In the early period, this settlement will see little use save for educational purposes, but in the late period, this settlement type will be key in faction development.

Factions Capital The capital of each faction will have several bonuses, and losing it may prove disastrous for that faction. The features of the capital apply only to a factions initial capital; if you decide to move your capital, you will be unable to access these features from your new capital.

Capitals will have unique development paths that remove the restrictions that other development paths have; all buildings and units will be accessible from your capital. Capitals also have access to special buildings that provide large bonuses for the settlement. They even have some extra features, such as recruiting royal ladies, unique improved laws, unique character traits, etc.

Management of your kingdom

The second major feature of the War of the West is a total revision of kingdom management. Each faction will have their own personal goal to reach their Golden Age. At the beginning of the campaign, each faction will have an overview of the political situation and goal targets. A player may or may not follow these goals, but these missions will provide superior historical advantages, such as military reformation, the birth of factions, and the advancement of the factions conquest. Once you succeed in fulfilling the Golden Age goal, you will have an even larger goal; the Empire Goal.

The Empire Goal is the original vanilla goal of Medieval 2 Total War: to control a fixed number of regions and to eliminate your

rivals in order to form your empire. The War of the West team will also try to represent something that has been overlooked by many other modifications; Imperial decadence. When managing a small kingdom, most faction leaders will be adequate. When managing an empire, the faction leader may have issues maintaining the control of his people and nobles.

The player will have several interactive events that will affect the faction leaders authority. We want to provide further immersion by encouraging the player to envision himself as the character they are managing in game. Each major action you perform will affect your authority. We intend to remove from the player the feeling of God, by forcing him to make difficult decisions and sacrifices. Every choice made in these interactive events will provide a positive and negative consequence to the player. Lets view an example of the interactive script that will affect your faction leaders authority:

A rival faction declares war by attacking one of your villages. At the beginning of the turn, you will receive a message that explains to you that you are now in war with your rival and war costs money. You will be given a choice to raise conscription taxes on the nobles and the commoners alike in order to raise an army to defend your kingdom. If you accept, your authority will decrease

and your dread will increase, due that your people and nobles dislike additional taxes. If you decline the option to raise taxes, your people will respect you more because you improvised and found another way to finance your war, causing your authority and chivalry to increase.

That was a basic example, but the general premise is explained by it. There will be many more interactive events such as that. Not only will your faction leaders authority and stats be affected, but the loyalty of your generals may also be affected.

Now lets discuss the negative consequences of having paltry authority.

A faction leader with low authority will not only upset your people, but your nobles will be less willing to follow you and may even conspire against you! This is the worst consequence of having low authority; if you authority drops to a low enough level, the chance of internal rebellions will increase. If such a rebellion does occur, your kingdom will be shattered by rebels and a initially hostile shadow faction will emerge from your faction, which will attempt to eliminate your fragmented kingdom.

The heir of your king may also have serious problems if your king had low authority, as the nobles and commoners will already despise the royal blood, so killing off a weak faction leader will not resolve your problems. For these reasons, the player will have to work even harder to increase his faction leaders authority, as authority may increase with successful military victories.

Production Buildings The building feature that has had the largest overhaul is the new building type called Resource Production Buildings. These buildings are only available if a region possesses the specific resource needed to construct that building. For example, in order to construct the Vineyard buildings, the region will need access to the Wine resource. These buildings will provide great trade income bonuses, and some of them will give you additional bonuses.

We have also added some penalties and maintenance to buildings as well. Its only logical that buildings require certain maintenance expenses to keep the building functional and to pay the wages of the workers.

The penalties are logical disadvantages that certain buildings would have. For example, markets are a cities main source of income, but public order can get more difficult to maintain as markets become larger, and corruption and blackmarket penalties will rise in higher tier buildings as well.

Guilds We have also redesigned guild buildings. Now, in order to build a specific guild, you will not only need to accumulate guild points but also take into consideration what development path your settlement will take. You want your settlement to possess a Merchants Guild? Specialize your settlement into the Economical Path. Some vanilla guilds have been removed, particularly Religious Orders as, usually, these orders didnt fight against other Christian factions. New guilds have been introduced along with new bonuses and traits to replace the removed guilds.

Interactive Event and technology

As was mentioned previously, the gameplay will be affected by your choices. This will include technological advancement, which will affect which new units and buildings a player will receive.

Once a historical event occurs, the player will receive an interactive event that enables him to invest in and adopt various advances, such as gunpowder, or metallurgic advancements. Technology is a large investment and the player will have only one opportunity to gain access to that technology. If a player accepts, investments will be taken from your coffers and you will gain access to the new technology. If a player declines (if the player seeks a challenge or is experiencing a lack of funds), he will not be granted access to the new technology, and will instead receive an income bonus to help him to continue to play the game. Military technology will not comprise the entirety of these interactive events; advances will be made that are cultural, agricultural, medical, entertainment-based, etc in nature. Because the AI is incapable of properly dealing with interactive events, opposing factions will automatically gain the technology without penalties.

Historical Events
While our modification was made primarily for player enjoyment, we will be adding various, interesting historical events as well.

Historical Battles

As was explained before, we intend to add some historical information; because this is a Total War mod, this includes military history. This special feature of our mod will allow players to experience historical battles. We will try to include at least one historical battle per faction in order to allow the player to better familiarize himself with said faction.

At a specific historical date, the players faction will command an automatic battle that involves his faction and his rival at the end of the turn. Each side will feature a preordained army, along with the historical figures that were involved, and if you win the battle, you will receive a reward for that accomplishment. This feature will be optional at the beginning of the campaign; while we dont want it to interfere with players whose primary interest in our mod is gameplay and continuity, our intention for this addition is to give the historically oriented players an interesting feature.

Garrison Script
This script will provide additional challenge to the player by spawning additional units for a besieged AIs settlements. Once the siege ends, these units will be disbanded. Since the AI has issues with pathfinding and balancing armies, this will give the AI a much needed boost.

Sieges
Sieges will increase in difficulty, and will be made more difficult. In the Middle Ages, sieges were long, but the besiegers did everything within their power to capture besieged settlements as quickly as possible. We want the player to experience this.

Siege engine script This script will enable a general to recruit trebuchets when they are besieging a settlement. Because trebuchets were historically built at the siege site, the most logical way to represent this is enabling them to be recruited on site. Once the siege is over, the trebuchet(s) will be disbanded. Some sieges may even have mercenaries available for instant recruitment.

Siege Turmoil This script will increase turmoil in the besieged settlements. Historically, stress, risk of disease and starvation, and death caused turmoil. The longer a siege lasts, more the turmoil will increase.

Disease and ration Script

This script will make the besieger lose some of his soldiers over time. Historically, disease, lack of hygiene, infected wounds, death from besieged archers, etc, made life hard for the besiegers, which is why they tried to take settlements as quickly as possible.

On the besieged end, settlements will have a Granary building tree. It will reduce the casualties and increase the number of turns that a settlement can hold off a besieging force. Destroying it will severely lessen the length of the siege, and increase the rate at which besieged soldiers die.

White Flag Script This script will enable a besieged army to, allowing their army to safely leave and forfeit the city. Accepting this offer will increase a Generals chivalry, but it will reduce the amount of money received by sacking the settlement. By declining it, a General will gain increased levels of dread, and the siege will continue.

Improved Walls The War of the West modification aims to do the first major overhaul of settlement walls. We will create custom new settlements, in order to better represent our singular settlement

type, to increase the challenge of capturing large settlements, and defensive castles, to improve pathfinding, etc.

We also intend to increase the health of walls and the range of towers. This will further increase the challenge of siege warfare, forcing the player to do more than create a single ram.

We also intend to increase the thickness of large and huge settlement walls in order to allow the player to place siege weapons on the walls (such as catapult or cannons)! The AI will have siege equipment that will appear through the garrison script to help him to exploit this walls advantage. Large settlements will have preplaced squares in their wall in order to enable the positioning of siege weapons. Huge walls will have entirely wide walls, which will enable to player to exploit the feature and place siege engines wherever he desires.

Speaking of siege weapons, the number of engines per unit will greatly increase, making a players army even larger; as well giving some much needed functionality to siege weapons in the open field. Siege engines will also have their unit cost, availability, and upkeep improved in order to give them increased functionality.

Agents
The agents will be greatly improved and altered. We will be introducing two new agents; the Knight and the Royal Lady.

Knight Agent and Tournament resource The merchant has been removed in the War of the West a drastic change to be sure. We felt that the merchant agent doesnt really provide enough income to warrant the near mini-game status of fending off irritating enemy merchant seizures.

Instead, we will be converting the merchant agent into a new one; the Knight. This agent, recruited from your Royal Court, will represent your kingdom in jousting tournaments across Europe. You will be able to control up to 2 knights at the same time.

The knight will participate in tournaments and earn money from them. The tournaments will be represented as a new resource in game. Tournament resources will have up to five levels, the higher the level, the more quickly your knight will gain experience. The resource will also generate income as long as the knight is in the tournament, much like merchants do.

The difference is the in the new feature, the knights challenge! Your knight will wander the map in searching for great prizes, challenge, and a chance to better his skill. Your knight may even be challenged by rival knights. If your knight defeats a rivals knight, you will receive a monetary reward (taken from the Rival faction) and your knight will gain experience. If your knight is defeated, then he may even be vanquished himself.

The knight will have different traits and models. Just as the priest can become a bishop or a cardinal, the knight may become a stronger challenger, the progression of which goes like this: Knight -- Chivalric Knight -- Knight Champion.

The more experienced the opposing knight is, the more money will be received by the faction of the victorious knight! Therefore, the players aim will be to gain access to the best tournament resources and defeating opposing knights!

Royal Lady The royal lady acts similarly to the royal princess; the difference is that the royal lady is recruitable from the Royal Court. The royal lady will also be able to gain an education based on

courtesy, manners, and diplomacy at the settlement from which they were recruited. She will be able to bribe rival generals by marrying them, but, as with the princess, the marriage may backfire.

Assassin The assassin agent has been completely overhauled; they are now even more useful and deadly! The assassin will be recruitable from either the Prison or the Dungeon, where the worst criminals may find redemption, if they help their sovereign do his dirty work, that is.

The assassin will now have no upkeep; the payment will be based on contracts. Each time the agent succeeds at assassinating a target or destroying a building, the agent will receive a payment from you. Doing a risky job will be quite expensive, but the result may worth the price. The higher ranked the character is, the higher the contract cost will be. The assassin may evolve, just like the priest and the knight, and they have new skills and models. This progression will be as follows: Criminal -- Assassin -- Specialist.

The assassin also has the ability to spread disease and plague after successfully destroying a building, at a small but increasable chance.

Spy Spies will also be changed. Their initial role will still be the same; infiltrate a settlement and increase unrest in it. This agent will be recruitable from the Tavern building tree and will have access to an evolution system, just like the assassin. The progression will be as follows: Thief -- Spy -- Infiltrator.

The spy will also have the ability to disturb characters. The spy may attempt to infiltrate a characters security, and, if he succeeds, he may impose penalties on that character. These penalties range from a decrease in personal security (for easier assassination) or the robbery of equipment (the removal of certain equipment related ancillaries). Coupled with an assassin, these two agents can cause enormous trouble to rival factions.

Diplomat The diplomat will gain access to education. The settlement in which the diplomat is recruited must possess a school and library, which will increase the quality of the diplomats education. So far,

no new skills will be implemented for the diplomat, but we will make the diplomat able to become an ambassador. The agent will have receive an increase in diplomacy, along with an increasing the chance to bribe a general and a new character model.

For now, these are the planned alterations and additions to agents, but we may introduce new or improved agents later in development.

Education
The mod will introduce an education system to your characters. There will be new buildings that will specifically teach a your characters in a certain manner, depending on how you want those characters to progress. Generals will receive either a military or administrative education. Dependably on the alignment of your character, the level of education may reach a normal level or beyond. For example, a militarily-minded general will be able to get the 3rd (maximum) level of military education but will not be able to exceed the 1st level of administrative education. The development path will also come into play, as will interactive events.

Certain agents will also gain an education, as well. The diplomat and the princess/royal lady will be able to gain access to their educational domain.

Diplomacy
At the beginning of any given campaign, you will have the choice of setting the factions to their historical relations or setting all factions to neutral. Players who prefer challenge will generally opt for the first option.

Diplomatically, we have decided to remove the gift agreement. Historically, when coming to diplomatic agreements, nothing was free; tributes, marriage and trades arrangement were usually expected after the conclusion of a treaty. Therefore, you will no longer have free agreements. For example, if you wish to form an alliance, then you will have to offer something in return in order to conclude the treaty.

Relations will also improve greatly; betraying an ally will be fatal to your reputation and making an alliance afterwards will be very difficult. Remember that all your actions will affect your reputation in Europe; a peaceful faction will be a better target for an alliance than a faction that starts opportunistic wars.

Vassalage will also be improved, as the player will now actually have the option to perform a vassalage (in vanilla, performing a vassalage was nearly impossible to do, as AI factions would generally fight to the death).

The AI will be very aggressive from now on. If they are at war with you, it will really be Total War! They will sign a ceasefire only if they cant defeat you or their economy is suffering to heavily. Expect to offer a large sum if you are the one proposing the ceasefire.

Even though they are aggressive in war, they will still be loyal as allies, to a certain extent. If a player has a poor relation with a faction and an allied faction decides to ally with it, there may still be a chance for the player to be backstabbed by this ally.

You will now have the chance to ask a faction to start a war with another faction! Having a well established alliance with the faction in question makes this easier, of course.

Conclusion

There are many other improvements that arent listed in the preview, suffice it to say that we are reworking the whole vanilla game; we intend to improve all of the games features and to make this modification the best Total War experience possible. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments that you want to address to the War of the West or its team, feel free to express them on our thread.

Thank you very much for reading this preview. We hope you enjoyed it!

War of the West Official Members

St. Polycarpe (Team Leader, Coder, Scripter) Kjertesvein (Right Arm, Researcher, Management) Lord Hamilton (Unit Modeler, Texturer) SonofPeverel (Researcher, Mapper, Coder, Scripter) David93 (Coder, Scripter) Warman222 (Animation, Cinematograph) BLIP99 (Mapper) Ancient Aliens (Researcher, Content Writer, Publicist)

Kevindrosario (Coder, Scripter) Tsarsies (Coder, Scripter) Ichon (Researcher)

Credit, Permission and Special Thanks

Germanicus Custom Settlements o Chivalry II: The Sicilian Vespers o Raaka's Norse Roster. o Narf of Picklestink ( M&B Open Source) o Ferrum Aeternum Complete Byzantine Unit Roster Mr, Crow Weaponpack Mr. Crow/Johnwhile War Wagons Dejawolf Medieval Helmet Pack Narf's Transitional Pack Broken Crescent (Alpha Delta) Rusichi Total War Tsardoms Total War Lord Calidor Weapon Pack Point Blank RC/RR Compilation Set Baltic Total War Shredzorz Weaponpack Wrath of the Norsemen Swagger's Mod Pack "L'Outremer" Germanicus5 BAI King's Banner
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Royal Lady of the Court Eothese's Expanded America Mod Crimson Tide 4.2 DLV Europa Mod Blood, Broads and Bastards V.3.2 Davide.Cool Cog Warships Davide.Cool Merchant Ships Davide.Cool Better Water 2.0 High Quality Sky Texture 1.0 1066 Mod Redesigned Strat-models Settlement Xeryx AI (XAI) Hunter Makoy's Ultimate Education Mod Magyar Mod XIIth Century Totalwar Version 2.5 RR_Raptor65 (M&B Open Source) Thick_1988 ( M&B Open Source) Tsardom Total War Byg Grim Reality The Last Kingdom Agart and Overlord.U Improved Strat Models (Castle and City) Briarius Animation Pack Deus Lo Veult Kaiser1993 Sound Mod 0.91 Louis Lux's Building UI from TATW.

All the fans that support us, the modders from the Mod Workshop that always help us to continue our project; Gigantus, Ishan, Moon, Taiji, Withwnar, Eothese, TNZ.