Fall of Rome

[Hross af Guttenburg]

I'm surprised that this hasn't been brought up yet, ~:confused: ........at least I don't think it has.....

I know Maximus Decimus Meridius is still hard at work on Rome for MTW and from what he has said in previous discussions WILL not be planning on making a Fall of Rome mod for the RTW engine.
However as one of the guys who contributed to F.O.R. I am keen to see the idea reach it's full potential and this is possible with the RTW engine.

The limitations of MTW in religion, unit behaviour, faction politics and map landscape etc can all be now overcome.
I think that whatever the F.O.R. mod for RTW should be will inevitably owe a great deal to the groundbreaking work done by the guys in Europa Barbarorum.
Smaller factions with greater diversity on new locations on the campaign map are the key factors it seems.
The issues that for example plague Europa Barbarorum's mod will not effect us: the three Roman factions can easily be made by The Byzantines, The western Romans and the smaller more limited Romano-Britons who should also hold the territory of the Armorican province (modern Brittany.)
SPQR would obviously be replaced by the Papacy, at this time the western Roman capital was Ravenna.
A populated Sweden and Gotland in Europa Barbarorum points to the possibility of modding other areas such as the two Danish islands which would make for the inclusion of a variety of Germanic factions that is more realistic than even Maximus' mod. DUring this era, the Danes were still based in the islands and not on continental Europe, the Goths in southern Sweden were a strong kingdom (before teh rise of the Viking era) the Angles and Saxons as wella s other can be given some interesting historically accurate regionally specific units, i.e. Anglian spearmen (the Ango was la framea or javelin/fighting spear which gave the fighter a real bonus against armoured opponents. The warrior elite of the Saxons used a longsword whereas the lower classes used the longknife both with advantages against armoured opponents.
More emphasis can be laid on the Picts and the Irish as well as including Kent (after making it a province) as a start pos for the Anglo faction turning Britain from the start into a real war zone.
The Alanic-Vandal faction could include some really cool units.
But the most exciting aspects should be the cultural differences between the factions, again this would owe a great deal to the work being done by the Europa Barbarorum guys, but if we think that all the nomadic Steppe factions had a serious lack of buildings, siege equipment and infantry but extensive and low priced cavalry with high population levels we could get some amazing things going on.
I vote for a historical accuracy as the starting point for the mod, so the Sarmatian Bosporans (originally my suggestion in the old F.O.R mod) must be left out of this mod. But then again what with EB's extensive campaign map modding we have three Crimean provinces and this will make for some great head-to-head conflict between the goths and the Steppe nomads.

Anyway, I'm ranting, but I hope there are others who are of a like mind and want to get something together.....

[Trajen the 1st]

Actuelly the S.P.Q.R were still in power before the fall of rome. Granted they were still made up of polythestic members while the rest of the empire went cristchan. And sad to say there are limits to what rome can do. For example there cant be all these specificly celtic factions(although being of celtic decent i would enjoy this very much had it been possible)there can only be room for the picts as i see it since the irish didint do much at this point in time. And there are also culture limts aswell. For example we cant define the goths from the franks or the picts from the saxones. Why? Becuase there all cramed into one "barbarian" culture and cant be streched beyond the limits of that.(no specific music voice types or portraits ) :sad: So in a way MTW has more moding freedom than RTW. But id give the F.O.R team some slack. There really making an awsome mod and im really looking forword to it alot!
But Maximus' F.O.R is a classic hands down! ~D

[QwertyMIDX]

You can work around the Voices limit, there are 5 (I think) available voices per culture. The voice cultures are Roman, Greek, Barbarian and Arabic, I'm pretty sure you can break down Arabic into Eastern and Egyptian and maybe even Carthagian, but I'm not sure...

[Myrddraal]

Isn't the expansion going to be called barbarian invasion...

Be careful that your mod doesn't become redundant

[Lonely Soldier]

I think this mod is already being made... I believe I have seen it over at the TWC or SCC forums, though I'm really not sure.

Even if it has been started, I'm sure you will have a lot to bring to the project anyway, if you choose to join there team!

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Cheers, I'll have a look at what the other teams and projects are doing.
But I think that of course Maximus' mod is not redundant by any means, he's almost perfected the final release. It will be perfect if he uses my portratis and music! ~D But they would be in different add on packs anyway.
But a RTW mod based on what fall of rome did would still eb awesome I think.
There will actually be a lot of cultural ddiversity...I suggest you take a look at what the EB team are doing...it means that every invaded province makes for new choices of government- this would be especially cool when considering the nomad factions as the EB guys are offering the chance province by province of whether each culture remains nomadic or becomes an agricultural settled province.
The barbarian voices could easily be made into the german factions, the roman factions include the Byzantine and the romanobriton faction. There will be no 'Celtic' factions as such as, only the Irish and the Picts...alternatively these could be rebel factions, although I thínk that because they were christianised by this time we could have them as latin voiced with elements similar to germanic culture in building choices. The Welsh are also important. Although we must remember that the EB team's work will decide a great deal what is possible to do.
I did have a new idea for this mod, namely that rivers chould be made navigable. A good map modder could dop this.
That would give the Germanic factions (with cheap, quick and easy to make ships a great advantage) especially when we consider that the many Germanic factions will start fighting amongst themselves very quickly and many will become extinct early on, so a chance for them to colonise (which is histoically accurate) and leave their homelands would be a good way to balance the campaigns and keep them in the game.
I think Britain snd Scandinavia should be given several more provinces and settlements whilst taking away from central Africa which did not really have role to play in the events of the fourth and fifth centuries. South sweden and the Danish islands were home to many tribes. Northern England it self was made up of three separate and powerful kingdoms even by the time of the arrival of the english and were very important in the story of the Arthurian legend. The Shetlands and Hebrides off north Scotland were also important military and cultural areas which were involved in the whole Pictish and Scottish conflict. Wales was a separate kingdom from the romano-british provinces. So again, including several factions based in these territories and giving Britain several new provinces this would allow a lot of action in the west instead of focusing everything around the Alps and the borders of the Byzantine empire.
The Sassanids and Arabs have similarities, even with other factions if neccessary. I have ideas on how it is possible to keep diversity even with the the limitations of four faction types.
The fact the we have a unit limit for the game is easier when we consider that the diversity of native Roman faction troops was much more limietd in this time than during earlier centuries. If we make most units province specific it would be both historically accurate and also more interesting to the game. A faction that conquers new territories can start fielding those troops far from their homelands. So strategy and land ownership becomes much more important, not just in trade but also the military option.

I think SPQR will not be a good idea as the Rome faction in this mod as it doesnt really reflect the history. Or perhaps you disagree?
At any rate, I can't make a faction list now, only bring up ideas. If and when others come aboard then things can start to be decided, I won't be able to do this mod on my own. But I'm starting with units already just to see what is possible. Although again, I want to wait until EB release their beta so I can rip off their ideas!
Maximus did the same actually, his first mod version still had medieval unit graphics. Only when other modders developed Roman legion graphics did he start becoming more advanced and then others starting coming aboard to help....the rest as they say is history...

[Trajen the 1st]

Define "not a good idea". The Papacy didint exist yet, there was no "Pope" only the Pagan senete of rome and the emperors. ~;) Stop waching movies and start reading some history books.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

A pagan senate with Christian emperors? we are talking about 450 AD?
Innocent I WAS the religious patriarch of Rome at the beginning of the fifth centrury and the power of the senate compared to the great power, land, wealth adn military holdings of the bishoprics in Italy alone merits the Papacy (or the religious organisational body that was to become the Papacy) to take the role that SPQR as a faction fulfilled in the original RTW game. This decade would be aperfect starting point for the mod, with Pelagius and other Chrsitian leaders at each others throats vying for control and accusing each other of heresy could make a very intersting background for cultural diversity among the Roman factions. Using the EB idea of modding 'buildings'. The usurper Contantine claimed rulership of Britain and Armorica after the Romans withdrew. This was the time of Stilicho, Radagaisius and Alaric. The Vandals, Alans and Swabians managed to migrate into Spain. Historical pop-ups, perhaps even bringing alterations usch as religious penalties or bonuses (just like the orignal game) could be made to spice the action up a little bit. But that's just what I was thinking.

By all means write up some suggestions of factions for this era. Remember that even refelcting a two hhundred year period of this era we are talking about huge geographical movements of tribes. The Vandals for example.

The whole point of the game is to re-write history from an historical starting point. Fall of Rome for MTW has the Bosphorans as a faction (as well as the papacy), but they Bosphoran Sarmatian kingdom died out well before the mod era starts, but it makes for a great mod nonetheless. Just an example.

[Razor]

there's already a mod in progress called "Fall of Rome:Total War". Go check it out: http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/forums/index.php?showforum=36

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Excellent, now I can relax.
I'll watch the progress with great interest.

[Reverend Joe]

Is Maximus going to be involved at all in this new mod?

edit: I found the members list and he's not on it. Too bad.