Tzardoms Cooperation Thread

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Hi Mylae

Hope you are well! You are doing a fantastic job with the new Machiavello mod. I can not wait to play the great conflicts in Italy in the XVth century with it. I loved playing the old version of Machiavello made by the housekeeper.

I am the team coordinator of the Tsardoms Total War mod for which our common friend Francesco has worked in the past and shared his work with.

I hope you don't mind have a few questions for you about Italian medieval armies (in Tsardoms we have Florence, Milan, Naples, Papacy, Sicily as factions):

- did the Italian armies have archers with pavises? or were there only pavise crossbowmen?
- I took some inspiration from your rosters for the Italian armies post. The Italian skirmishers were they a unit similar to the targonieri, using a smaller shield and a throwing spear? I remember a picture from stemmi e impresse showing an Italian soldier throwing a spear
- Do you still plan on having a difference between Feudal and Communal units
- I would like for the Italian armies to be a bit different from each other. My idea is for example to give milan more professional provisionati troops while Florence has more militia troops.
- what do you think of having a White Company mercenary unit only avaialable for Florence? I am thinking of even giving only Florence the English longbowmen. Also was thinking of a Feditori cavalry unit only available to Florence and Genoa.
- For Milan I am thinking perhaps of a special Milanese Arquebusier unit perhaps
- What do you think of giving Naples Hungarian mercenaries?

I remember a while ago one of our team members was supposed to send Francesco our Italian unique settlement models to give to you. Did you ever get them?

Also, I saw that you are creating Ottoman units. I would recommend that you use the Ottoman units from Tsardoms as they are designed for the XVth century and have been researched by native Turkish people. They are the most historically accurate ottoman troops in a medieval mod. Feel free to use them or modify them as you wish.

I think if we could collaborate and share some of our work we could both finish our works quicker. Of course we have already collaborated as we already have some of your units and you are using some of ours which is fantastic!

Cheers

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Hi Wallacchian! Nice to hear from you.

Thanks for the compliments - I am a passionate on baklan history too, and I follow with great expectations Tzardoms and his development.

I have never received the custom settlement models: i would really, really love to use them - and seeing the mastery of their creator, can i ask for a couple ofthem too?

currently ottoman units are from tzardoms; however, i would like to make some change to them, as i got some free-to-use .obj model that i can use for them ;)

I WOULD LOVE TO COOPERATE: I can send you an updated version of the mod, feel free to take what is needed. I made some model for wallachian units and i plan to include several balkan units too, to show up things from late-greek stratiotai up to polish horsemen



Now, here are the answers to your questions:

- actually, there were neither "pavise crossbowmen" nor "pavise archers". Italian Pavises, expecially from the mid-XIII onward and in the late XIV-early XV century, were manned by a boy - a Pavesario, or Palvisario, who set them up in battle. It was more a sort of engineering feature, that is, the creation of a small fortress of pavises behind which cavalry and missile units could find repair.
A singular element told us from contemporary eyewitnesses in the Dino Compagni's "Cronica delle cose occorrenti ne' tempi suoi": in the Battle of Campaldino in 1289, the bishop of Arezzo, being slightly myopic, asked one of his followers "What walls are those up there?", as he could not figure up what looked a castle in the distance. And he was answered "They're the enemy's pavises". We could figure up that there were more pavises than front-soldiers, and that some pavise could also be made by thick wood tables to be used as mobile fortifications.
Later depictions, like the 1450s illustrated manuscript of the Hesperis by Basinio da Parma shows a column of soldiers on the marc followed by a some packmule loaded with pavises/targoni.
from XV century the "pavise" as we intend appears to transform in italian professional armies and sources use alternatively the word "targone" for it, although we may intend for a Targone a large "targa" shield, that would be effectively used as a shield by a man, and not as a wooden frame stuck on the ground carred by a packmule and positioned by an "engineer".
Ingame is a feature almost impossible to represent: I was thinking of a viable solution in giving crossbowmen the special ability of setting up "stakes", but substituting the stake model with a couple of pavises to try replicate the same feature. Unfortunately I have some problem in the .mesh conversion.

- thanks for inspiration :D i am (i was) currently redoing a large part of the italian armies in order to include a larger variation of weapons used and to allow all of them the effective use of backup weapons also by foot soldiers. It looks to me more fair to see ingame that, when pikemen/spearmen clashes, the front row abandon the pike to use his sword against his opponents. Skirmishers are a bit pussling, however. We know for sure that there were in use the so-called "lanciotti" or "mezze lance" (half-spears) to be thrown - although how much this use was widespread is questionable. They may have been issued by some front infantry in XV century, as some commander would have read the "Epitoma rei militaris" by Vegetius in which the roman soldiers are described carrying two javelins each. Oddly enough, this '400s commanders try to imitate romans in tactics and armaments as they saw it as an example to follow (the best example of it was Machavelli's treatise on The art of war in early XVI century), although their idea of how they romans went into battle was a bit awkward to our eyes.

- there is no difference between "feudal" and other units as the "feudal" name does not bear any sense per se, especially in the XV century. However, we can set up a clear distinction between "militia", "semi-professional" Cernite and provvisionati and "professional" mercenaries, the latter fully armed, equipped with the best items, trained and battle-hardened. Each city, lord or land held some local militia, that in time they tried to "professionalize" more and more. An excellent example of this are the French 1440s Ordonnances that instituted the Francs-archers, that, if you see their organization, is slightly more than a militia. Lesser lords and their retinue often sold themselves as mercenaries too - so even an hypotetical "feudal militia" could, in fact, become a mercenary unit.
I am redrawing units following a militia/cernite/professional growing up, allowing the first to be recruited by all as AoR to mark some differentiation, while the professional and better equipped ones would be more similar to each other.

- perfect for milan, who in 1447 accounts of the civil war mentions units of Milanese Scoppettieri who were held in high esteem; however, florence did not use almost militias, or soldiers at all, as they almost exclusively rely on mercenary armies. this point might deserve a larger answer later on, as i would love some differentiation too.

- white company dissolved in early XV century. i think a good way to depict this mercenary companies is to include them in a script, to allow the player to have them in case of war, but theycould not "recruit" them as normal units. in this way not just longbowmen, but also other mercenaies from other parts of europe could be represented.
Feditori is a generic term used for medium/heavy cavalry in central-north italy around XIII century.

- i have included a sort of follow-up: as the game starts in 1441, we would have handgunners; later on, from 1450s/1460s early arquebusiers will substitute them. as milanese were referred as scoppiettieri - that is, handgunners - it may have continued this tratition later on. anyway, i would love to give every faction some special unit to play with.

- not just Naples but also Venice and other states may have used hungarian and balkan mercenaries. keep in mind the feats of skanderbeg,

regards,
Mylae

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Hi Mylae

Thank you for taking the time to write a detailed response.

Unfortunately there will be some time until tsardoms is ready as after 10 years of development the mod folder was full of CTDs. So we took the decision to remake the mod folder from scratch. This took the past 4 months and is still ongoing. But so far there are no CTDs and the mod is running excellent.

Fantastic! I think collaboration is the only chance M2TW mods have as its really a dieing platform. Everyone plays the new games now and no one cares about the old ones except our small community. I actually still like M2TW the best because it offers so much flexibility with building chains, the map, scripts etc.

I would love it if you could send your mod folder and if we could use a few of your models (for example your Albanians and a few Italians and your beautiful agents and some strat map models).

Ok no problems I will get the link to the folder with the Italian cities we have all major Italian cities (Florence, rome, genoa, venice and I think naples) plus Ragusa too. Of course you can use all of them and anything else you like. Due to the whole mod folder reconstruction we actually have two mod folders the old one which has everything in it including the strat map models and the new one which does not have strat map but has all units. I will ask my team members for the link to both.

Sure; feel free to use and change the ottomans or any other units as you like.

I also have a pinterest account where I collect medieval and renaissance images from various regions such as Balkans; Italy, Germany etc. I can send you the link but the problem is that you need a pinterest account to see them. But I think it would be very useful inspiration.

Did Polish horsemen reach Italy too?

And now to the questions:
- yes I did read that the pavise was very large and was actually held by a second person; but we can't really represent that. although your idea with the stakes is genius. would love to see if it works. yes, I think the shields we use are more the targa shield but we call it pavise. Did Italian archers also hide behind pavises like crossbowmen?
- I think I will still have an Italian skirmish unit that throws the half-spears, at least if there is some historical evidence
- wasn't the cernite only a venetian thing? my research shows that the venetians had the cerne militia; I didn't realize other Italians had it too. in terms of feudalism what about naples as they were more of a monarchy? was their organization still similar to the communal states?
- would love to have a high end Milanese scoppetieri unit.
- yes I did read that the Florentines heavily used mercenaries but that they also tried to use citizen militias a lot too especially with Machiavelli attempt at a reform.
- in tsardoms we have the core of Italian units shared and each Italian faction has a few unique units like venice with arsenalotti and fanteria da mar etc but for Florence I wasn't sure of anything other than bargello guard inspired from the old machiavello
- I would differentiat the balkan and Albanian stradiots from Hungarians. The Hungarians generally had very western armies with heavy armour troops. later they developed the hussar based on the Serbian one. for the Hungarian mercs I was thinking for Naples as they had the angevin kings and they had the link with hungary. Especially as tsardoms starts in 1345 when the king of naples is the brother/relation of the king of hungary and the following kings are the cousins. There were several Hungarian condottieri too. Venice was at war with hungary quite a lot so I doubt they would have used too much Hungarian mercenaries, I could be wrong

We are actually working on a complete new Croatian roster. Wait till you see the painted pavises we have for Austrians, Croatians and Ragusa too. YOu will love them.

Anyway I will wait for the link to the new version and will send our links too.

Talk soon
Cheers

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well, a reply to your questions.

1- no, polish mercenaries did not reach italy; better said, some group of polish mercenary may well have reached venetian territory. For sure, in 1441, (for Machiavello), they were part of the Grand Army that Ulászló/Władysław, king of Poland and Hungary, summoned to the Varna crusade.
We have accounts of troops coming from territories held by John Hunyadi (Transilvanians and Szekelys) and Polish nobles and their retinue, while hungarian nobles' loyalties were more questionable (see Civil war in Hungary)

2- "Did Italian archers also hide behind pavises like crossbowmen?" I guess so, even if we have almost no depiction of archers. We got mentions of them, usually as city militia/police forces, but not really in battle.

3- Yes, there is historical evidence of them. Just look at the Hesperis

Hesperis di Basinio da Parma

4- "Cernite" or "Cernide" is a generic term that means "chosen". Since Venice stick to that system (at least in the name) until 1797, they usually identifies with venetian. You can even read about "cernite" in renaissance writers referring to ancient roman legions, as they were "chosen" among citizens. In Naples and sicily things seemed a bit different, as military units seems to be partly mercenaries, partly local lords with their retinue (often working as mercenaries, too). For sure they did not have a full-fledged city militia system, as it was more common in a "republican" form of government like in early Florence, Bologna, Genoa, Siena, Lucca or Venice. We have a mention of a "Prima Cernita" in Montferrat as a sort of honor guard for the Marquess.

5- I did one indeed :P

6- Machiavelli's reform was in early 1500s, and was more a proposal than an actual deed. In the previous 50/60 years, a massive change in military matters happened. we see the golden age of heavy knights, the progressive lightening of the infantry who carried less armour and transitioned from the lance system to a pike square, and the rapid increase of firepower, who replaced archers and crossbowmen.

7- yes, the "bargello guard" i made from old machiavello is just a foot city general, to mark a difference between "city officials" and "hired mercenaries" in Florence. There were really few mentions of unique units, so we may try to implement them from our scarce sources. We have mention of guard units of mounted crossbowmen for some general, or we get mentions of sicilian infantry (who might have something different to be noticed as such?), corsican mercenaries as papal guards (swiss were not yet sent to rome until much later), and obviously crossbowmen distinguished from the city of origin, like Genoa, Savona, Pisa, Siena and so on.

8- i had set up a distinction for several ethnic groups in the balkans. I was there for a while. I plan a set of (when possible) 2 units for each group, be they 1 infantry/1 cavalry or missile unit. I have made (or will made) the following models:
- Polish Nobles;
- Polish Light Horsemen;
- Bohemian Heavy Infantrymen (Pavise);
- Bohemian Handgunner;
- Bohemian War Wagons; (preview)
- Szekely Horse Archers; (preview)
- Szekely Archers;
- Transilvanian (Saxon) heavy infantry;
- Transilvanian (Saxon) handgunner;
- Wallachian Light Horsemen; (preview)
- Wallachian Light Infantrymen; (preview)
- Serbian Husar;
- Serbian Infantrymen;
- Bosnian Nobles;
- Bosnian Spearmen;
- Croatian Nobles;
- Croatian Spearmen;
- Dalmatian Light Horsemen;
- Dalmatian Infantrymen;
- Greek Stratiotai Spearmen;
- Greek Archers;
- Albanian Horsemen;
- Albanian Light Infantrymen; (preview)

Hi Mylae

First of all thank you very much for taking the time to answer and also congratulations on those beautiful 3d models you posted and also those Balkan units are great too. They look fantastic!

I have sent an email to the keeper of our folder and he should get back to me about sending the mod folder.

Ahh yes of course I know about the crusade of varna and Janos Hunyadi. Actually during our timeframe hungary and Poland were in a personal union. I just forgot that your mod covers all the way into hungary too.

Also, a note on the vlachs you have made which are very good looking and historically accurate unit. So there are few types of vlachs. We have the Balkan vlachs which spoke a romance language and were shepherds with populations all over the Balkans from Greece all the way up to Istria. Then we have the vlachs in wallachia and moldova. It depends which ones your unit represents. If it represents the vlachs of Istria, Balkans etc they should not have the heraldry of wallachia on their shields because they didn't really have anything to do with the state of wallachia other than being related populations. Otherwise it is fine to have that heraldry.

Do your war wagons have only crossbows? Because the bohemians were famous pioneers with the use of handguns with the war wagons.

Very interested to see your Milanese schopettieri. We have sinnese schopettieri as a special merc unit, arsenalotti arquebusiers as a special venetian unit.

Yes I read about the Corsican bodyguards of the Pope and the Pisan bodyguards of the first Genoese doge. Other than that it is probably hard to do unique units. But my idea was to differentiate Italian factions based on groups of units. For example I read that in the XVth century Milan had the largest professional army in Italy at 25-30k men and Venice was second largest. So was thinking of giving Milan access to more provisionati troops compared to other Italian states.

oh, i know about the vlachs; those posted in preview were just a test i made for wallachians; i tought that later on i could made a separate unit for Morlacchi / Maurovlachoi but i could not find adequate sources yet.

about the war wagons, they were a test I made to see if I were able to insert them in the mod and have them working.

I will post here the preview for balkan units.

First to be shown here is the Wallachians, guess why

Those wallachians look fantastic! For a cavalry version though I would suggest that you make them horse archers. The wallachians were famous for being horse archers (trait that they learned from the cumans and later that tatars). They still practiced horse archery even in the XVIIIth century.

Ok so I am still waiting to receive the mod folder for Tsardoms. But since I actually have the old folder on my computer perhaps I can just send you the files with the strat map models. I just need to check if they are in the old mod folder. Do you know where in the game folders i could find them?

thanks!

well, the stratmap models will be found in "\mods\**mod name**\data\models_strat". The whole folder may be needed, as textures and variations of models (in .cas) could be organized in sub-folders.

thank you wallachian for the awesome material - look at the astounding quality of city models!

No problems. Happy that we can help each other and collaborate! I see there a few more models which were not on the map yet. This is great!

good! Later on i'll try to find why the tzardom map keeps crashing :D

Oh thank you but don't waste your time. Dcdastro has rebuilt the mod folder from scratch anyway and now it does not crash. Took about 6 months to redo everything but it was worth it. It was a terrible waste of time but the mod folder I gave you was 10 years old and full bugs, unfinished content, old scripts made by people that left years ago and no one knew what some things were etc

Wallachian, I have a solution to a problem you may have in stratmap models: textures need to be uniformed in size, possibly in no-mipmap dds or tga, and in 512*512. This solved crashes that happened using your models, as their presence made the game run with some graphic issue.