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Omegamann
09-16-2002, 16:46
Hi,
as a fan of Total War since Warlord Ed. times, I always considered doing a MOD/Total Conversion for it.
Now with MTW and the great bif editor from RSW it is know possible to create realy great MODs.
The first willing to work on those MODS have already started Fantasy Total War, Road to the Dark Ages and Shogun/MTW being the most prominent.

I sadly have neither the time nor the resources to realize my own ideas, but maybe some of the creative minds out there will take up one or the other idea.

Also I think it would be beneficial to all people working on mods to start central discussions or create a central archive about the techniques that are used/required to create their mods.
I have often seen 3 or more topics in this forum dealing with the same question how to change this or that.

OK now to my ideas (I would be happy to coordinate, coach and generaly help anybody who would be interrested in doing one of the below):

Fictinal:
Conan Total War:
War on the Hyborean World of Robert E Howard

Birthright Total War:
Fantasy Total War on the ADD world of Birthright

Historic:
Biblical Total War:
War in the pre/biblical(Old Testament) Middle East (From Sumer and Akkad to Hittites/Babylonian/Assyran/Egyptian times)

Homeric Total War:
Minoan and Mycaenan Cultures as an Add On to the above

Classic Era Total War:
Greek City States vs the Persian Empire
+ Etruscans, Campanians, Samnites and other European cultures of the period.

Macedonian Total War:
Alexander vs the Persian Empire (or Late Period of the above)

Aryaman
09-16-2002, 18:54
I am making an historical mod for Medieval, meaning that I am trying to reorganize all that units many of them with fancy statistics (I assume for the sake of game balance) into something historically more accurate, regardless of game balance. It is a mod mainly to recreate historical battles, because the strategic part of the game is beyond repair regarding historical settings.

NagatsukaShumi
09-16-2002, 20:33
I'm sure if you get a group together you can make a MOD of your own, there's lots of nice guys out there who'll help you out.

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Power to the Sultan!
-Clan Seljuk

I don't know Akech, can't trust Mithrandir with the newbies, he may try and create a Miny Mith.-NagatsukaShumi

Bullethead
09-16-2002, 20:51
Omegamann said:
Quote Historic:
Biblical Total War:
War in the pre/biblical(Old Testament) Middle East (From Sumer and Akkad to Hittites/Babylonian/Assyran/Egyptian times)

Homeric Total War:
Minoan and Mycaenan Cultures as an Add On to the above[/QUOTE]

Hmmm.... This IMHO would be a major change. You're talking Bronze Age here, during which warfare was apparently VERY different from anything before or since (at least until the late 20th Century). Or so more recent findings, theories, and analyses indicate.

As I understand it, Bronze Age armies were small, standing, professional bodies. There was almost no reliance on the general population to provide troops. The professionals were of 2 main types. First, the main striking force consisted of chariot-borne armored archers provided by the landed nobility and their household troops. These chariots were supported by specialized light infantry called "runners" who were often mercenaries. These guys had javelins and shortswords. They held onto the chariots and bounded along beside them, letting go to fight. The army also usually contained a small formation of conscripted peasant infantry, but these guys weren't for battlefield use. Their job was guarding the camp and baggage train.

Apparently, Bronze Age battles were rather like modern fights between IFVs. The chariots would race around blazing away at each other with arrows, the opposing forces often charging head-on through each other, then turning around for another pass. Meanwhile, the "runners" would finish off disabled chariots, attempt to destroy others with close assaults, and protect their own from enemy "runners", periodically grabbing onto passing chariots to move to other areas.

MTW's engine doesn't seem well-suited to this type of fight. This Bronze Age stuff was much more fluid than the ranks and ranks of grunts MTW uses. Plus, the "runners" seem to have operated in very small, independent teams (2-4 guys per chariot tops) instead of large formations, and could mount and dismount during the battle.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria

Omegamann
09-16-2002, 21:33
You have got a point there Bullethead.
I also did some research on bronze age warfare know about the limitations of the MTW engine.
But your arguments would have also spoken against many units that are already in MTW.
Mongols and Eastern Horse Archers didnt normaly ride until in range, stopped and then fired their arrows (no firing on the move is one of the biggest limitations of the engine IMHO).
In fact the Crusaders had a hard time clashing with their Saracen adversaries, as their style of fighting was a lot more fluid than depicted in MTW.

Soapyfrog
09-17-2002, 01:30
TW engine is very well suited to Napoleonics. It keeps track of unit cohesion and morale, as well as exhaustion, cavalry charges, so on and so forth...

And now it does artillery too!

A Napoleonics mod is not far off!!!

Bullethead
09-17-2002, 03:00
Omegamann said:
Quote But your arguments would have also spoken against many units that are already in MTW. Mongols and Eastern Horse Archers didnt normaly ride until in range, stopped and then fired their arrows (no firing on the move is one of the biggest limitations of the engine IMHO).[/QUOTE]

Agreed. But the way horse archers in MTW work is close enough to be OK with me. The chariot/runner thing is a whole 'nother story, however.

It might be possible to develop AIs for both chariots, to pass through other units, and other units, to open gaps for chariots to pass through them. This already exists to some extent when 2 friendly units units with loose formation walk through each other, so maybe somebody could start with that. OTOH, there seems to be nothing in the engine in any way analogous to the runners. Plus someobody'd have to make graphic for chariots.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria

Bullethead
09-17-2002, 03:21
Soapyfrog said:
Quote TW engine is very well suited to Napoleonics.[/QUOTE]

Understand that I'm a HUGE Napoleanics fan. Any Napoleanics mod will get my full support. I'd get it in the absence of anything better http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif. However, IMHO MTW's engine isn't capable of doing the subject justice.

It would work up to a point. MTW has all the necessary units that could be tweaked to reflect Napoleanic technology, and the other battlefield mechanics would work well enough. Unfortunately, MTW limits you to 16 units per side.

Even if you tweaked arty units to have 6-8 pieces each, there's still nowhere near enough unit slots to come close to the size of armies in Napoleanic wars. Even with 200 men per grunt unit, that's not even a Napoleanic battalion each. So at most, under the present 16-unit limit, the most you could field per side would be a single Napoleanic division with maybe a minimal amount of cav and arty support. No way that measures up to the OOBs of even "small" Napoleanic battles.

So at present, any Napoleanic mod would have to contain some substantial abstractions on unit size. You'd probably have to have each unit, of 200 men max, be a regiment, maybe a division, at the least.

This is all a result of MTW's use of pure realtime for battle resolution. This puts a pretty low limit on the number of units a commander can control, no matter how |\/|&|) his $|

MagyarKhans Cham
09-17-2002, 04:34
without any mod u can give it a try in a 3 vs 3

each take 2-4 cannons, 2-4 cav an 8-12 arquebus or similar units

spmetla
09-17-2002, 08:00
Quote Even if you tweaked arty units to have 6-8 pieces each, there's still nowhere near enough unit slots to come close to the size of armies in Napoleanic wars. Even with 200 men per grunt unit, that's not even a Napoleanic battalion each. So at most, under the present 16-unit limit, the most you could field per side would be a single Napoleanic division with maybe a minimal amount of cav and arty support. No way that measures up to the OOBs of even "small" Napoleanic battles[/QUOTE]

Don't go assuming that ancient and mediveal battles were very small.

I believe that at Hadrianople it was something like 50,000 romans vs. 50,000 goths.

The 1st crusading army was something like 55,000 plus troops.

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If the world were a cake I would have ruined my appetite eating it
Luftwaffle@mad.scientist.com
http://www.boomspeed.com/luftwaffle/NewSig2.jpg

Omegamann
09-17-2002, 16:13
I agree that unitsize and the number of men on the field will always be abstracted when using the MTW engine.
Though in early medival times there were limitations on how many men could be fielded, the late medival period and early renaissance saw huge armies of pikes and rifles.
And even before medival times battles were fought with tenthousands of soldiers.

BTW. almost any MOD that tackles another period will require new unit graphics.
Thats why know that I couldnt do any of the above.
Hopefully somebody able to work with Poser or MAX will show up here.

I would be interrested to know how Lord Krazy plans to do the units for path to the dark ages.

dclare4
09-21-2002, 00:09
I guess it really is a game play/machine power thing. If you play with the max units on (Like I'm doing with my English Civil War battles) it slows down to a ridiculous speed. However in an effort to keep things interesting in the game I did the 'massive attack' mod w/c doubles the size of the lighter units in the game so you can raise more 'massive armies' easier - paying them is another matter altogether though!

Gilbert de Clare