Princes, Kings and Heroes

Princes, Kings and Heroes
Platform	M2TW Kingdoms
Mod Type	Total Conversion
Era	Medieval
Mod Leader	wilddog makanyane
Release Status	Un-released
Mod Foldered	Yes
Forum / Thread	Here

Description

PKH is set in the period from 1280 to 1330. This was a very turbulent time in Britain being only a short time after the end of the rebellion by Simon de Montfort and the start of the reign of Edward I. This mod aims to bring together the major factions involved at the time in an enjoyable bit of history hokum and game play. Its concept is that you lead your family house to ever greater riches and power whilst following the medieval virtues of Feudalism, Family loyalty and the need to ensure a successful male line. The mod is planned to have 27 factions in total including rebels.

Historical Context

The time period is set just 3 years after the first Welsh war and covers the defeat of the last true Welsh prince and death of his troublesome brother Dafydd who was hung drawn and quartered. It also covers the Scottish 1st War of independence and the rise of the Bruces. This led to their attempted invasion of Ireland which ended with the death of Robert Bruce’s brother Edward. As the period progressed several of the English Earls revolted against Edward II and his favourites. This saw several leading families rise spectacularly and then fall just as quickly. The king’s favourites were captured and hung or beheaded. Many of the Earls were killed, either in battle, executed or imprisoned. Edward II was captured and murdered with a hot poker at Berkeley castle. Roger Mortimer took Edward’s queen, Isabella, as his mistress and reigned in all but name until he too was brought down and executed by Edward III…. which is where the mod ends.

Features

PKH Map Preview

The Map

The map and content is a reasonable approximation for Britain in this time period. It's not trying to be 100% accurate. The PKH Team tend to follow some basic rules on map making which simply preclude that. As an example the team always aim to set up any settlement at least 2 tiles from a river crossing point to avoid things like besieging towns from a bridge! Size of towns are being set up according to estimates and studies for that time period. London of course will be downgraded as the game can’t easily handle that size population.

The overall map size (i.e. tile size) is 300x300 pixels (Heights is 601x601 pixels) so is a reasonable size. The team may release other maps for this in later versions which will hopefully follow.

Resources

There are new resources added to the campaign. Some are new models some are just tweaks to existing models.

Scripting

Titles

Titles basically are hereditary in PKH through your male line and apply to your faction leader. None of this walk into a province and you suddenly become the local Lord etc.

Providing your new faction leader is of your true family then you can receive his titles. However, as applied then, you must pay your feudal relief to the King in order to receive your titles. Naturally you can only do this when its convenient to the King and clearly not if he's annoyed with you. Once you have paid your feudal relief you can of course then gain the benefits of tax revenue associated with your accepted title.

This is one of the little scripts that has been set up in PKH to add that extra medieval flavour... and that's just one of the reasons why its good to be the King.. and you can't play the King.

For the human player it gives more reason to keep your faction leader alive if possible and of course to keep relations with the King on a good level. Depending on hardness that you play determines the cost, the bonus and how good the relations need to be with the King in order to be allowed to gain those titles.

Interface graphics

Makanyane has been working on the menu and loading interface for PKH mod. It has a slight more medieval feel and loses some of the more modern looking elements. Loading screens use some old black and white book illustrations to decorate those giving it an authentic medieval feeling. The Main menu is overhauled where the menus is in the center and on a scroll while faction selection screen for campaigns is also unique where faction info appears on the main scroll in an enlarged area.

Units

PKH has a wide variety of units in it. Being a historical oriented mod the English factions have the advantage over the other British Isles factions in terms of the numbers and quality of knights and other mounted men they could field. Infantry at this time were thought of as second class. Mostly made from the bottom ranks of society or hired mercenaries. However infantry tactics and their different types of troops started to make their mark in this period.

Factions

There are 24 playable factions in PKH mod.

Faction	Coat of Arms	Brief Info
House of Fitzgerald		to be filled.
House of De Lacy		to be filled.
House of De Clare		to be filled.
Earl of Cornwall		to be filled.
O'Neill		to be filled.
House of De Valence		to be filled.
Earl of Lancaster		to be filled.
Royal House of Plantagenet		to be filled.
House of Percy		to be filled.
France		to be filled.
House of de Warenne		to be filled.
Gwynedd		to be filled.
House of Mortimer		to be filled.
House of De Vere		to be filled.
House of Fitzalen		to be filled.
O'Connor		to be filled.
Royal House of Canmore		to be filled.
House of Comyn		to be filled.
House of Bruce		to be filled.
House of Balliol		to be filled.
House of De Bohun		to be filled.
House of Beauchamp		to be filled.
House of De Burgh		to be filled.
House of Bigod		to be filled.

PKH Castles Preview

Castles & Forts

Castles

PKH mod focuses on unique strat & battle models for castles this adds intense uniqueness and fun in the gameplay, this is the first mod that incorporates this unique and intriguing feature in M2TW. For battle models(settlement modification) the mod team developed and released their IWTE world editing tool to the TWC community. Their basic plan is to use several specific strat map castles and use either individual or suitably generic battle map models for those castles (ie using appropriate vanilla models or some specific models).

Forts(Slideshow)

Forts

This is one of the unique features that PKH mod provides forts in this mod that is on battle maps are unique which have been tweaked or overhauled by the PKH team. This adds more realism and uniqueness in gameplay.

The research is still going on and the PKH team has progressed in battle building & settlements on battle map modification considerably. For more info please go here(IWTE - World editing).