The Long Road

Overview

The Long Road is a long 900 turn campaign that starts in 1080. It's focus is on Medieval Europe, Western Asia, and the Middle East.

The aim is to not give any preference to either "side" and ensuring an exciting experience no matter what faction you start with.

Releases

TLR v1.9.10 released in this thread May 2007

Features

• Custom Huge Map that includes 197 regions and reaches past the Caspian Sea
• A total of 900 turns
• 1 year = 2 turns (6 months per turn)
• Era system for units based on Armor and Weapon Technology
• New Historical Events with Graphics
• Custom Advanced Campaign AI
• More Field battles due to map and field intercepting AI.
• More realistic movement rates on the campaign map.
• Reduced Pirates and Rebel spawn rates
• Improved Merchants. (Merchants are now far more important and competitive)
• Lord, Duke, and Emir Titles for all Provinces
• Many New Character Traits and Ancillaries
• Diseases for characters
• Rebellions
• Family Member Bloodline tracking.
• Improved Princesses including Islamic Princesses
• Simulated Faction Councils
• Improved Tech Tree. Reasonable, realistic requirements and progression.
• All Unit recruitment moved to specific buildings. No Free Units from Walls. Both Cities and Castles require their respective building types
• Recruitable Early Period and Late Period Generals. Including Dismounted Generals for certain factions.
• Building Costs and Times have been increased to balance with the longer campaign. This gives you a challenging game that forces you to manage your economy.
• Ranked Experience Bonus for Agents (Priest,Spy,Assassin,Merchant,Diplomat) from improved buildings
• Improved Unit Textures
• Various new units
• Re-skinned Byzantium Faction
• Inquisitors toned down
• Heretics toned down
• Cavalry charges are powerful, but beware of spearmen.
• Added all the dismounted versions of Order units
• Guns now require line of sight. No arching bullets.
• New AI and Player Formations
• Improved AI Siege capability. Reduced AI bunching up in front of the gate
• New Factions (Khwarezmian Empire, Kievan Rus', Syrian Caliphate, Abbassid Caliphate)
• Heraldic Rank, Leadership, Campaign Experience, Governance Experiance Traits.

Economy

The economy is a central part of the challenge built into TLR. If you aren't able to improve your economic situation, expect to be destroyed promptly.

There are various strategies to deal with this. Most involve focusing on economic buildings early on. Remember the free upkeep on militia units. It can be a life saver. Crusades/Jihads can be very beneficial especially if you raid and sack enemy cities. Merchants, Trade Agreements, and Ports are very important for your economy. Losing a Trade Agreement can hurt.

Campaign Map

The map is a highly customized big map with 197 regions. It is much larger than the vanilla MTW2 map.

The new extended map has removed the Aztecs and Americas in favour of extending the map East.

New Factions

Splash screen from The Long Road

• Kievan Rus'
• Abbassid Caliphate
• Syrian Caliphate
• Kwarzemian Empire

Planned Factions:

• Volga Bulgars
• Kipchak-Cumans
• Georgia
• Aragon
• Pisa

Eras

There are eras based on armor and weapon technology. The era's change at random times within a specific range of years.

Start of Game

Era 0 - Units with up to leather upgrades

Era 1 - Units with up to light mail upgrades

Era 2 - Units with up to heavy mail upgrades

Era 3 - Units with up to partial plate upgrades

Era 4 - Units with up to full plate upgrades

Era 5 - Units with up to gothic plate upgrades

Intermixed there will also be other notable events that control building and unit construction.

Stone Castles

Concentric Castles

Introduction of Battle Assassins for Eastern factions

Cannons developed

Handgun developed

Matchlock developed (Arquebusiers)

Advanced Matchlock developed (Musketeers)

Pikemen

Pavise Shields

Mounted Crossbows

The various Knight Orders

Events

There are various historically informative events added to help set the stage for what is occuring in the game world.

Many are tied to actual happenings as explained in the Eras section.

Campaign

At game start, most settlements will have stone keep/wooden walls or smaller.

Population/city level doesn't strictly control unit development any-more. A regular city can recruit pretty much any unit if it has the needed building and the corresponding Era has been reached.

Barracks give easier access to more units via an introduction system. For example, a town guard building will give you full access to 'Town Militia' units and limited access to 'Spear Militia' units. Limited access means low replenishment and only 1 max in reserve. Therefore you should see a much bigger diversity in units at the beginning of the game. But they will all be limited to the Era system. For example, at the start of the game you may see Billmen pretty soon because they initially have no armour and therefore fit into Era 0.

Lastly, both cities and castles will be able to recruit all units. Different experience levels and rates will differentiate the settlements. Militia will be differentiated by being cheaper to purchase, have free upkeep in both types of settlements, but be less effective than professional soldiers.

Campaign AI / Diplomacy

The Long Road features a fully custom built AI tweaked to match a long campaign game-play experience.

The AI should attempt to guard its borders and attack invaders leading to many more field battles.

Battle AI

• Improved formations for the Player to utilize
• Features improved formations that make a AI sieges more realistic and difficult
• Improve the realism of missile weapons.
• Guns now require line of sight for attacks.

Unit Balance / Auto Resolve

Features a very unique animation delay balancing technique that results in more consistent auto-resolve battles.

This helps ensure that units that win on the campaign map auto-resolve also would win in a Player/AI battle.

This is very important because auto-resolve is what AI always uses for its battles versus other AI factions.

Team

Main Team:

• Map Development, Unit Balance, Build Tree, Economy Balance, AI Development: tornnight (Founder)
• Artwork including: Banners, Ancillaries, Splash Screens, etc. : acegogo
• Mercenary Upgrades : Admiral-Krause

Other Contributors to The Long Road:

• Historical Background: Averroës
• Resource Adjustments: Averroës
• Faction Starting Situations: Lopus
• Realistic Family Names : Lopus
• Interesting Historical Events: Hissing Fauna
• Big Map: Spurious
• City Title Artwork: Tokus*Maximus
• Splash Screens, Blood Mod, Textures, Units: Burrek
• Byzantium Reskin: WhiteWolf
• Battle AI Improvements: DarthVader
• Blood, Broads, & Bastards: Dearmad & Pnutmaster
• Faction Images: Biocote

External Links

The Long Road hosted forums at TWC