PDA

View Full Version : The Wierd Blob Thing



King_Etzel
12-26-2004, 15:48
Winter, 233 B.C.
The Gates of Alexandria

Last summer, Flavius the Cunning, who was Flavius the Killer, was obliged to lay siege to the great city of Alexandria in order to save time as had pursued a defeated Egyptian Army led by a foolish young prince, whose wits were rattled by the plague, into the city's zone of control. Now he is obliged to assault its pathetic wooden walls in order to gain the city before a huge army led by Meryre the Mad crossed the bridge and fell upon his rear.

The Roman-Egyptian war was a direct result of Flavius' meddling in Egyptian affairs and sending hordes of spies into the Pharaoh's realm. Of course the Pharaoh was not pleased to discover this and was even less amused when some of Flavius' spies "accidentally" incited a riot in Alexandria which somehow escalated into a fell fledged revolution. In retaliation, the mighty Pharaoh decided to blockade the magnificent port of the large town of Siwa!! That was a few years back and Flavius had been turtling while mustering a rather large stack of post-marian units back in the Scipii home provinces. Which are well on their way at the moment, which is good, for Flavius needs the reinforcements. So Flavius thinks as the sun rises high and the battle begins.

But lo and behold!~:eek: A sign is upon the field of battle, a great omen. A huge long blue-black blob lies upon the eastern wall of the city. It appearance is that of foul water, dark blue and translucent, but all of Flavius' wise men cannot tell from whence it came, for the River Nile is all the way on the next tile and the body is connected to no stream. Moreover the strange apparation gives of a most frightful pulsation of light. None of the brave men of the Roman Army dare to enter its boudaries, for it seems that it reeks of pure evil.

http://img148.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img148&image=wierdblobs8es.jpg

Fortunately it did not command the attention of the men for long, and had no noticable physical effect other than to bar the way to the city's eastern. Flavius' men scored a great victory over the foul rebel filth and crushed them into the dirt. In the tradition of the Scipii family, three out of four inhabitants of the city are slain, and their belongings looted, for daring to resist Roman might. After this great victory, the scribes saw it fit to rename Flavius the Cunning to Flavius Victor. Flavius quickly marched off to defend the river crossing with as many men as he could spare. A scribe remained behind to record more information of the strange omen, for it seems that it had not faded after the battle was won.

Here are paintings based on what he saw:

http://img148.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img148&image=wierdblob12lk.jpg
On stilts wading in water

http://img148.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img148&image=wierdblob22ft.jpg
Northern end of the anomaly

http://img148.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img148&image=wierdblob37us.jpg
Strange shimmering pulsation

http://img148.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img148&image=wierdblob46ef.jpg
Painting made by a painter who was paid by the scribe to climb one of Alexandria's sacred obelisks to get a better view. He had quite a good balance and buns of steel. Needless to say the local inhabitants were not pleased at this violation and hurled him into the anomaly, where he immediately began sizzling and smoking until no trace of him was left. Luckily for him someone had killed him already on the way there. The scribe fortunately retrieved the painting before the angry mob set upon him. ~;)

Okay... nevermind. ~:)

Is this wierd blob thingy supposed to be there? As said before, it is impassable to man and beast.

Images were hosted for free on the free imageing hosting site ImageShack http://www.imageshack.us/

hmm it would seem that these pictures arent coming out in the preview, only as links. Rather unexpected. Oh well. And the links are a bit slow, but they work mind you. It would be nicer if they could actually be there instead of links.

Ar7
12-26-2004, 15:53
The Egyptian gods are against you, leave this land!

But being more serious I have to say that must be a bug or something, I think there was a topic about it here....somewhere...*goes off looking through the forums*

eadingas
12-26-2004, 16:13
It definitely should not. It seems like the water is where it shouldn't be - have you been editing the map files, for example, or have installed any mods that change the descr_terrain.txt file? I have had battle maps that were totally submerged under water - interesting effect of everyone in the field dying immediately :)

King_Etzel
12-26-2004, 16:27
It definitely should not. It seems like the water is where it shouldn't be - have you been editing the map files, for example, or have installed any mods that change the descr_terrain.txt file?...

Mine is an absolutely completely vanilla RTW. Not even with any cherries on top.
~;)

Didz
12-26-2004, 16:30
It looks as though Flavius the Cunning has just discovered Oil. Now all he needs is to invent the horseless chariot and he will be made for life.

rebelscum
12-26-2004, 17:22
Behold the result of 1000 troops wetting themselves before the battle or maybe the toilets in the village are a bit bunged up.

nokhor
12-26-2004, 18:41
here's an old thread of it.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=40648

eadingas
12-26-2004, 19:11
It might have something to do with the fact that there is a pixel of RGB value 2x2x2 right next to Alexandria's position on the heights map. Correcting it in any graphic program should help...but I'm not sure.

master of the puppets
12-27-2004, 00:09
in my scipii game i captured alexandria and the entire western wall was submerged!!! ~:confused: as the wall was wood i tried to march some throwaway cavalry into it, they were ok so i captured the city upgraded the walls. now my walls are epic scale but that river is still running under the wall? well it did'nt hurt my men so i did not think much of it but it piqued my interest. note it wasnt a lake but a river it came from the nile went through the city and kept through until off the map.

jimmyM
12-27-2004, 00:17
I had the same thing in Vanilla version - though for me the "blob" wasn't as extensive...can't remember if there were camera problems associated with it; for example it rotating down to face directly into the ground or other such wierd stuff...

King_Etzel
12-27-2004, 15:54
Ive figured out why those pictures dont turn up. I must have copied the wrong links. Oh well, I'll fix that once i get editing privileges.

Anyway i read that other thread. Nice to know that Im not the only one with the problem, though a solution seems rather far off. At least its pretty harmless. For me the strange anomaly also appears when you view the city on the battle map from the details scroll, not just battles. So i suppose that might help other ppl looking into the problem.

eadingas
12-27-2004, 16:14
Which side of the city does it appear? West or east?

Besieger
12-28-2004, 05:00
or is it.....* no offence* that the great tsunami os asia had juz hit north africa???? :dizzy2:

King_Etzel
12-28-2004, 14:57
Which side of the city does it appear? West or east?

umm i doubt it would be difficult to tell if you looked closely at the screens

eadingas
12-28-2004, 15:01
Well, somebody said 'entire western wall submerged', and on the photos it looks like east, which is why I'm confused...