wackyserious

Armored Horsemen (Mujaffafa) Bedouin Mounted Archer Healer (Hakim) - I am thinking of merging the Hakim/Mullah/Imam role into one. Something like an Islamic warrior-scholar. Umayyad healers will have a combat bonus aura to depict the effects of how the Jihad affected the Islamic societies during the Islamic conquest period. Infantry Spearmen

Might I also add, white was the color of the Umayyads according to the Osprey article. On the other hand, black was the color of choice for the Abbasids.

I just wanted to share this interesting video here.

Keywords in the Osprey article were 1.) Long spears (2 meters) 2.) Short swords (Almost similar to the roman gladius and hung on the shoulder and not the hips) 3.) Bows (Heavy reliance on archers) Spears and bows are the ideal weapons according to Islamic tradition.

A similar entity to Hellenistic military colonies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jund

Another problem would be the proper unit roster. I am oblivious in the military structure during the period of the Muslim conquests. Good news is that I already made a functional civ for the Umayyads and it is ready to be committed. I have used the Seleucid building set for placeholders. For now it has the following units which already have texture files: - Infantry spearman - Infantry archer - Infantry swordsman - Female citizen

Would the Seleucid building set work as a placeholder?

@Sundiata What is the closest building set in the game that we could use as structure placeholders for the Umayyad faction?

Again, I experimented with @Alexandermbs coif/hood mesh. This could be a temporary prop for the Arabs.

I'm uncertain on the textiles, not sure if those are accurate.

Preliminary texture for the Umayyads.

I decided to remove their tunic and reduce the fur coverings to depict them as somewhat naked which is how they are described in the sagas and in recovered artifacts. The berserker in the Total war mod above is not accurate since it is wearing a chainmail which contrasts the description of how berserkers fought.

https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/weapons/berserkers/

In case we want to create a dark fantasy faction we can re-use the pelt textures. I find their new appearance dreadful too.

Updated Units : Norsemen B E R S E R K R ( Berserker ) H U S K Á R L ( Housecarl )

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?670449-Umayyad-Caliphate-Units-review

Experimenting with @Alexandermbs coif/hood mesh.

Good day @Athelia To access mod.io the in-game mod downloader (this is a very recent integration that is a part of Alpha Ken Wood) 1.) Run your game 2.) Click on the Settings tab in the home screen 3.) After selecting the settings tab, click on Mod selection From there you can access, select, download and activate the mods which interests you.

Maturing trees. Where the new spawns would be tree saplings and these saplings would auto research a maturity tech which is set to, let us say 10 minutes. Saplings provide minimal wood, while moderately aged trees provide decent amount of wood, on the other hand, fully mature trees provide large amounts of wood and are capable of spawning new trees in its vicinity.

I also envision this to myself. Thank you very much @Sundiata Your thoughts and words are truly inspirational. It is nice to have you around, here in the community.

I stand with the same POV as Stan. What we really lack is the manpower needed for the maintenance of adding more factions the game and merging it with the dev priority hierarchy. I am not against this, I am very supportive of custom projects as a part of our modding community and would gladly participate in it, once it has been green-lit. What I am really concerned into is the feasibility of adding it under present circumstances. The inclusion of mod.io is a big step towards this, IMO. Mod projects are now directly provided to the players. If popular demand would push this initiative towards the game then I would be overjoyed about it. Having Terra Magna as an umbrella project for civs that parallel the game timeline is also good. Everything was consolidated in it and the workload during release was reduced.

In marketing aspects, I believe what the game is trying to achieve in its Mediterranean-centered theme is to have its own branding. Branding plays an important role in establishing an impact on your target market. You need to have a strong and solid identity in order to be remarkable. In my opinion, this is part of the game design. This is the objective of the developers, to come up with a historical RTS with an ancient Mediterranean. DLCs or expansion packs could come along afterwards. This could be observed in the industry, best example for this would be how the developers of the Total War series, slowly absorb other cultures via DLCs. This is also why we have mods for the game and an active modding community here, to satisfy the urge of the community to have them as playable factions which the game could not include at the moment, for reasons stated in previous discussions. Adding more factions at the current state of the game will only increase the workload of the developers and moderators and will consume their schedule even more at the sacrifice of the free time which could have been spent on currently open tickets which will further speed up the overall development progress of the game. In my personal opinion, I am not against this, I personally like the idea of having more factions. It is just that this feature is not ideal for the current state of the game. Maybe this could be worked out in the future.

Also, we could add Falconry as a tech. It will boost meat gathering rate for the nomadic factions.

I suggest that you name the nomadic livestock bonus as pastoralism in contrast with sedentary animal husbandry. Nomads are more reliant to livestock than settled folks, thus making them more practiced in animal husbandry than the sedentary communities that prefer plant cultivation as a primary source of food, which they then supplement with livestock. Nomadic horse breeding tradition. Reduced training time for cavalry units too, compared with non-nomadic factions.