Africa Total War [Archive]

Sundjata Keita

10-29-2004, 15:29

Africa Total War

I have started work on an African Total War mod. It will span from 1230 to 1468, the rise and fall of the great Mali empire. At the time Mali was the sum of three allied nations - Mali, Mema and Wagadou. These will represent the three Roman Factions. The campaign map will be the whole of Africa, Madagascar and a bit of the middle East. Other Factions will be (subject to change) :-

Nok
Mossi
Kanem-Bornu
Egypt
The Tuareg Berbers
The Almohads
Fulani
Bulala
Songhai
The Arabs
Almoravids
Djolof
Portugal

All of these owned some of Africa during the span of the Mali empire.
Unfortunatley there is little detail recorded in this period (which means no-one can correct my accuracy ~:) ) so I only have two historical battles planned -
Kirina - 1235
Timbuktu - 1468
I really need some sort of team to help me with this mod. I have already started the campaign map and already have a vague plan of the provinces. I have the tools to do modelling and texturing (I use 3ds Max and Photoshop) but I will need help getting it all together. Any help and feedback will be greatly appreciated and maybee even some constructive criticsm ~;)

DeadRunner

10-29-2004, 16:57

nice project m8

But dont forget that Portugal belong to Europe ~;)

tombom

10-29-2004, 17:23

nice project m8

But dont forget that Portugal belong to Europe ~;)
But the portugese colonised Africa during the late part of this timeperiod.

Sundjata Keita

10-30-2004, 18:56

Campaign map half done, just got to add all the city stats and building in the text files. Also got to do the heights.
http://www.freewebs.com/africa_total_war/map_regions.bmp
http://www.freewebs.com/africa_total_war/map_heights%20copy.bmp

Still need more people on this project (so far there's just me :bigcry:)
Visit my site (well freewebs site) to find out more Africa Total War (http://www.freewebs.com/africa_total_war)
Also can someone make me a signiture promoting africa total war. I made two but they were too big in filesize, they are on the site now. It just has to say Africa total war and have a picture and fit in with the requirement.

:help:

Sundjata Keita

10-31-2004, 20:07

done 1 unit. Can't seem to get a screenshot though cos the game keeps crashing. Well basically I edited the triarii (have I spelt that right?) to have a shorther spear, an oblong sheild with african pattern on, a bare chest, all the colours changed and the helmet different. Also I did him a leopard skin tunic. If I can't get it to work I will post the texture file instead. I will edit this post in about half an hour.

P.S. Still need some helpers on this project. :help:

Sundjata Keita

11-01-2004, 20:30

o.k. not sure how to edit posts but here is the mali spearman, he may change a bit yet but this will be the basic design

http://www.freewebs.com/africa_total_war/mali%20spearmen%202%20cut.bmp
http://www.freewebs.com/africa_total_war/mali%20spearmen%20cut.bmp

There is now a full list of all the regions and their respective capitals on the africa total war website at http://www.freewebs.com/africa_total_war

metatron

11-01-2004, 22:43

Looks great!

Meneldil

11-01-2004, 23:17

Well, I had a look to your site, and one thing I don't like is the name of your provinces/settlements. Right now, you're using modern names for you settlements, and that is just not really accurate.
If you want, I can have a look at my Europa Universalis game, cause though it's probably not 100% accurate, it doesn't use modern names for its provinces.

Stormy

11-02-2004, 00:48

:bow: wonderful looking mali spearman Sundjata Keita.
RTW is a fantastic game with a bright future. The fastest learned RTS engine ever and also the best looking ~;)

Keep up the good work Sundjata Keita ~:cheers:
I Can't wait to see more.

Sundjata Keita

11-02-2004, 08:34

I was systematically going through the settlements to see if they were around at the time. I found about 5 different spellings of timbuktu or tombouktou or tombouku etc... :dizzy2:

It would be great to look at your map for names.

I will post some screenshots of the mali archers later but for now I gotta go

Paul Peru

11-02-2004, 10:15

This looks very interesting ~:)
Great looking spearmen!
Getting the province/settlement names more authentic should be a priority.
Windhoek?
~;)
"The city of Windhoek is traditionally known by two names: Ai-Gams, from the Nama people, which literally refers to the hot springs that were once part of Windhoek, while the second name, Otjomuise, meaning a place of steam, was given by the Herero people."
The Herero got there after your chosen era, so Ai-Gams would probably be better.

The northern part should be "easy" to research. lots of unit types in MTW+mods.
Maybe you could cooperate with the folks making a Medieval mod for RTW?
There's a lot of books. Osprey etc.

Less books and info to be found regarding southern parts though :embarassed:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0395764815/ref=pd_sim_books_3/002-5110942-1095210?v=glance&s=books
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521793726/qid=1099384624/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-5110942-1095210?v=glance&s=books#product-details
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0810847841/qid=1099384624/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/002-5110942-1095210?v=glance&s=books#product-details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Africa#Sub-Saharan_Africa:_Medieval_empires
Found out that the Yoruba retreated to tse-tse infested areas to get away from Fulani cavalry.... Maybe you need to get some sort of "terrain type" or climate where horses get harsh penalties?

It may be a good idea to wait until the 1.2 patch before trying to make something resembling a complete mod. Modeling units is probably a good idea for now.
Good luck and ~:cheers:

Sundjata Keita

11-02-2004, 18:28

Thanks for all the info and links. That wiki site is amazing, plenty more information to sift through now.
Some good news, I just noticed you can get arab light infantry, which means I don't have to do an arab face, it's done for me.
Also I just realised I won't have to do much to the egyptians either.
:egypt:

tombom

11-03-2004, 21:34

Silver Rusher

11-03-2004, 21:42

Could you put your images on Image Shack? (www.imageshack.us) I can't see...

Sundjata Keita

11-03-2004, 22:45

Sure. Here is the fist version of the mali archers, the turbans went wrong so I will change that. There are also a few other adjustments to be made, amazing how short a time this one took me. Just done it now. ~D

http://img72.exs.cx/img72/8972/maliarchersscreen.jpg

And here are the spearmen from before

http://img10.exs.cx/img10/4153/malispearmen2cut.jpg

http://img26.exs.cx/img26/640/malispearmencut.jpg

Sundjata Keita

01-04-2005, 11:29

I know I haven't updated for quite a while now but I have just resumed this mod after fixing the problems I have been having with rtw. I haven't got much to say so here are some pictures of the arab units. I still need to figure out what I'm going to call them and do the sprites for them and sort out some alpha issues and fix the arms of those archers and the shins of the slingers... not much then

http://img143.exs.cx/img143/9956/arabarchers5rk.png

http://img13.exs.cx/img13/8388/arabhillmen0dx.png

http://img108.exs.cx/img108/1825/arabhillmenfight6ab.png

http://img136.exs.cx/img136/7822/arabhorsearchers8gz.png

http://img136.exs.cx/img136/1425/arabpeasants2ux.png

http://img136.exs.cx/img136/8042/arabslingers4ls.png

P.S. If anyone has a map of africa at anytime during this period could you pm me or post it here so I can see it, I have some names for provinces but don't know where to put them. Where can I find that Europa Universalis map?

Paul Peru

01-04-2005, 12:11

P.S. If anyone has a map of africa at anytime during this period could you pm me or post it here so I can see it, I have some names for provinces but don't know where to put them. Where can I find that Europa Universalis map?
Some newer maps:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/map_sites/hist_sites.html
older Africa-stuff
http://historymedren.about.com/od/africa/

It's probably safe to assume that someone has made a geographically sophisticated map of mediaeval Africa.... I hope someone is able to help.

Sundjata Keita

01-04-2005, 13:52

Thanks for the links, never mind about the maps though I found a good site with all the origins of african regions so here is the final list

Morroco
Al-Jazair
Tunisia
Mauritania
Senegal
Gambia
Aguinaw
Gnawa
Sierra_Lyoa
Liberia
Cote_D_ivoire
Southern_Mali
Northern_Mali
Ghana
Togo
Gao
Dahomey
Nigeria
Niger
Libya
Rio de Camaroes
Chad
Eygpt
Gabon
Kongo
Aprica
Bilad_As-sudan
Ngola
Zaire
Kinyarwanda
Buganda
Ethiopia
Namib
Zambia
Tanganyika
Kirinyaga
Somalia
Bechuanaland
Zimbabwe
Mozambique
Aphrike
Basutoland
Swaziland
Mogelasio
Jordan
Arabia
Yemen
Djibouti
Mare_Erythraeum
Marawi
Sahrawi

Hopefully the campaign map will be completed soon and I can focus on the units. Again if anyone has links of information on unit types apart from those found in MTW please could you tell me.

Sundjata Keita

01-04-2005, 16:23

Unfortunately due to lack of interest in this mod I am going to stop making it. I may continue to do units and the map for it but I think for now I am going to join a team of modders or something so I don't have to do any of the scripting, it's just too boring and it takes too long. So if anyone needs a unit modeller or texturer or whatever pm me (examples of my work are above).
~:mecry:

alman7272

01-04-2005, 21:01

I could help with the text files, but Im no professional scripter (I couldn't do scripts, but I could do /text files and and others)