Broken crescent is far supperior to stainless steel.

[Pharaoh]

I am quite serious here. This mod is amazing it's like a virtual museum The units themselves feel like real people as well.. Major praise to the BC team.

[[TUUONCUOGB]BothChicken]

On some levels I agree. I'm pretty sure I've sunk way more hours into BC than SS. On the other hand, BC has some fundamental issues that keep me from saying it's better. I'll just start with what I like about it.

1) The map is pretty cool, and if you're more interested in the medieval Middle East it's definitely the mod for you.
2) It has three flavors of Islam now along with Hinduism and Buddhism. The religion mechanic is expanded upon. I just wish they could add some voice acting so the factions with the Mongol voices aren't silent, as well as voices for Buddhist Monks, or Buddhist Monks in general.
3) I also really like how they experimented with the early game and the building system. Buildings are way more expensive in the game and take awhile to build. You really need to invest in your economy to do well.
4) Merchants actually are worthwhile and make money.
5) On top of this, almost everyone starts with a huge treasury, a huge army as well as a large deficit forcing everyone to expand and go straight into the battles. This really leads to a more interesting early game.
6) As factions are about to die, they often get a huge elite army to make their last stand as glorious as possible.
7) They add in alot of the features I loved from Stainless Steel.

But there's downsides

1) Some of the stuff seems bugged. I've never seen a Latin Crusade arrive, even when the event came in I never saw any new troops for the KoJ
2) Almost every rebel settlement has a huge garrison that's almost insurmountable. This would be fine, but the AI factions do not garrison their settlements well, so there's no reason to go for the rebel settlements if you have to take huge casualties, attacking the AI faction is often easier. In fact that's how I handled my Armenian playthrough, bypassed the rebel Armenian settlements and went straight for the Seljuks of Rum.
3) I'm not sure if this is still the case in the current release, but I remember being disaapointed whenever I attacked a faction. You take one settlement and they send all of their armies on a retreat back to the capital, abandoning all of their settlements for you to take. Fairly boring to fight. The AI just isn't as much of a threat.
4) The Mongols. In addition to them getting elite trebuchets when they arrive (the Mongols had trebuchets, but I don't think they had developed counterweight trebuchets yet......) the base BC release was improperly balanced. The units they recruited had no upkeep, so the AI would first steamroll Central Asia, then spam countless full stacks of free upkeep units until they crashed the campaign map. In order to enjoy the game without the stupid Mongol armies you have to get the Buff and Shine submod. Which is disappointing, because it means the team doesn't playtest the mod to see how a campaign pans out.

SS has its own flaws as well, but overall it is far more properly balanced and the AI behaves way better. At least you have the option of various AI's. Overall it's more polished in terms of game mechanics and that's what makes it better in my opinion.

[Pharaoh]

What makes BC standout to me are the historically accurate units where as SS units are more vanila inspired that just kind of feels lazy to me the historical units of BC makes the world feel more alive and atmospheric.


Edit:BothChicken you might want to check this mod http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?785857-Broken-Crescent-Invita

[8-The-General-8]

The balancing of units in BC was a mess from what I recall. Multiple very extensive threads were devoted to it in the day...

Great effort though. I really enjoyed it.

SS (More immersive I feel) and Three Kingdoms mods are what I only have installed in this current Steam version.

Edit: Nvm... link posted above :S

Thanks

[Pharaoh]

@The general: Perfectly linked

as all posts should be.

[Shadow of the SPQR]

In basic themes I disagree, but that is my bias against eastern contexts speaking. Both are solid mods that stand quite well on their own merits.

[Pharaoh]

Also you guys are right about some of the balance issues I was playing as the egypt dudes and the crusader faction kept on declaring war on me for what ever reason OH AND THE INFIDEL CRUSADERS HAD ACCESS TO BLOODY DOOMSTACKS WHILST MY FREAKING ECONEMY WAS IN THE BLOODY DUMPSTER FOR SOME BLOODY REASON. I AM THE FREAKING SULTAN OF THE NILE RIVER! MY NATION SHOULD BE THE BREAD BASKET AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! there's a sub mod I am planning on checking out called invita and the features seem interesting I am downloading it as we speak.

[[TUUONCUOGB]BothChicken]

Most of the time, when a playable faction starts out as large, they start out with a bunch of public order and financial problems to make up for it. The Ayyubids are by far the largest.

As for balance, it really doesn't matter as it's still Total War AI. I personally found the crusaders the easiest to deal with, Arab cavalry have devastating charges, horse archers and are lighter. This allows you to always outmanuever the Crusaders. First isolate their calvary and pick them off, then just circle around the crusaders, hitting them whenever there's an opening. My Zengid campaign brings fond memories of exactly this. Same with my Armenian campaign.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I personally enjoy both mods, but with the additional submods: Broken Crescent with the Buff and Shine, and Stainless Steel in the SS Historical Improvement Project version.

[stevec6]

If anyone is still on this forum and knows a little bit of this mod works, i need some help.

You see, i recently downloaded Broken Crescent 1.05 and it works fine for the most part. But i notice that many units in the factions units rosters are missing many units. Most of the cannot recruit units, and the entirety of the artillery pieces, or siege engines are not represented in unit cards or able to be used in custom battle.

If anyone could tell me what i need to do to have them show up and to be used , that would be very appreciated.

Thank You

[Gigantus]

BC is at version 2.4.2 since December 2015
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?705635

You will also find there a forum with submods that may be of interest to you.