Rome Total History: New fantastic campaign map!!!!

[Philadelphos]

Philadelphos,when you dicede to blees us and release this mod,coud you create a thread at TWC?
It woud be a shame for someone not to see this...
Also,don't talk german...

Or elese...

Potrei anche parlare in italiano ;-)
Well, I was just joking! I spoke German to answer a question about my book, nothing related to the game.

So when and how will I release this? A good question. I think I'll need your help before I'll be ready.
I tell you a) what I got, b) what I plan and c) what I need:

a) What I got:
The map is ready. It's a complete rework including Scotland and India. In runs on RTW v 1.5.
There are 197 regions. Someone assured me that the limit is 199, but my game crashed at 198, so it would be nice to include two more regions, but for the moment I stay with what I got.
Probably not every decision about regions and cities will be exactly useful for your plans and you might want to discuss it. In any case I reflected for a long time and there are little margins for changes. But sometimes I still change a few things. For example yesterday I decided to change the borders in Spain.
I got a complete regions and cities list (you've seen parts of it above). Just ask and I'll send you the complete list.

Four things still need to be revised and completed:
1. The cities specifications (especially the buildings, while population should be ok)
2. The resources on the map are ok, but they don't correspond to the ones in the cities list (I don't even know if this is a problem)
3. The rebels should be revised and specified. For the moment I stuck to the list of the Time map editor, but I'd like to introduce a different rebel name for almost every region.
4. The mercenary pools are still incomplete. But this is a point that can be decided only in collaboration with the developers of new units. For the moment my strat.txt contains only vanilla units. Military units are out of my range of competence (since most of you are military historians or skinners, I guess you'll be glad to hear that).

b) What I plan:
For the moment I'm planning to release this as vanilla as possible under every other point of view.
This means that I want to keep the original factions with only one exception. I want to keep even two different Roman factions (Populares=Julii and Optimates=Scipii) plus the Senate. Only the Brutii will be replaced by another Greek faction. This is needed to counterbalance the Greek cities which would otherwise occupy without any difficulty all those mini states like Elis, Delphi, Euboia, Messene, Mytilene ecc.
My plan is to call this faction The Greek Colonies. They should be led by Pyrrhus and Hieron II and at the start they should include the cities of Tarent, Syracuse, Croton, Ambracia and Massilia. In my first trial runs they often went to war with both the Greek cities and the Romans, so it looks like going in the right direction.
I know that these decisions sound delusive to all of you who want to get rid of the Roman factions and play the Illyrians or the Mauryans. But my decision is to postpone these issues. My personal point of view is that the game includes several quite useless factions. Some where historically not important enough, others are not interesting for the game.
One of the less important factions are the Dacians, but they are much fun, when you play the Macedonians. The Tracians were not very important historically and they are even less in the game. Most of the time they are just sitting there and you have to help them to survive. My opinion is that these two factions might be merged somehow.
The Scythians had no real state and they are quite useless in the game. So they might be assigned to the Slaves.
Hence my idea is that in a second stage we might introduce the Illyrians and the Mauryans.
In a third stage you might even get rid of the Roman factions and introduce whatever faction you like.

As starting year of the game I choose 280, but it might also be 300. Indeed I've come to the conclusion that time is relative in this game. If you look at it you see that this game combines political and military confrontation of at least three centuries. For instance you might even have Hannibal meet Vercingetorix or Caratacus. If we'd stick strictly to the year 280 we wouldn't have a single German, Spanish, Britain or Numidian leader and all the Gauls should be placed in Thessaly and Galatia!
So this is not going to be a simulation of the year 280, but a time warp adventure where to meet all of your ancient heroes.
This is why I created the family trees and I'm almost done. Still missing are the Romans and the Greeks. All the rest is complete, even the Illyrians and the Mauryans which are included in the Slaves family tree (I guess I still have to include the Bosphorans and some minor leaders there). I included even a number of important leaders who died shortly before 280. So if you want, playing the Antigonids or the Seleucids, you might even start the game with the battle of Ipsos in 301 BC. In the end all leaders will be historic figures and each of them will be placed in a region where he actually fought (with very few minor exceptions).

c) What I need:
To release this game I need help mostly on two points:
1. I need to create the faction of the Greek Colonies. It should be easy, just doubling the Greek cities, at least in the first place, but I don't know how to do it and it would take some time to learn it. Every help in this direction is welcome.
2. Recently, after introducing lots of leaders and units, the game has become unstable. Usually I get a CTD after one of the first turns. Hence I'd need help to debug it.

Now that's my programme. If anything doesn't sound convincing, I'd be glad to discuss with you. With a little help the rest of the work might be done in about a month. Once released, my map would be available even for what you are planning on the Historical RTW Vanilla v1.5. Just let me know what you think about it.

[Skull]

Why you think Thrace is ussles?
And you coud merge daceians and thrace becose dacians where a Thracian tribe realy...

[Philadelphos]

Why you think Thrace is ussles?
And you coud merge daceians and thrace becose dacians where a Thracian tribe realy...

Don't missunderstand me. I like the Thracians. But I think they will always be squashed in the game, because Macedon, Pontus, Dacia and the Scyths are four strong neighbors. In my game they have even more trouble, because I strenghtened the Slaves in Byzantium and I added the Gaul storm of 280 with even a number of Egyptian units under Ptolemy Ceraunos. So you see there is little margin to strengthen the Thracian position, and that's the reason why I thought the same thing as you, that is, to unite them with another tribe. This might be the Dacians or else the Illyrians because they are both relatives of the Thracians.

[Magneto]

Potrei anche parlare in italiano ;-)
Well, I was just joking! I spoke German to answer a question about my book, nothing related to the game.

So when and how will I release this? A good question. I think I'll need your help before I'll be ready.
I tell you a) what I got, b) what I plan and c) what I need:

a) What I got:
The map is ready. It's a complete rework including Scotland and India. In runs on RTW v 1.5.
There are 197 regions. Someone assured me that the limit is 199, but my game crashed at 198, so it would be nice to include two more regions, but for the moment I stay with what I got.
Probably not every decision about regions and cities will be exactly useful for your plans and you might want to discuss it. In any case I reflected for a long time and there are little margins for changes. But sometimes I still change a few things. For example yesterday I decided to change the borders in Spain.
I got a complete regions and cities list (you've seen parts of it above). Just ask and I'll send you the complete list.

Four things still need to be revised and completed:
1. The cities specifications (especially the buildings, while population should be ok)
2. The resources on the map are ok, but they don't correspond to the ones in the cities list (I don't even know if this is a problem)
3. The rebels should be revised and specified. For the moment I stuck to the list of the Time map editor, but I'd like to introduce a different rebel name for almost every region.
4. The mercenary pools are still incomplete. But this is a point that can be decided only in collaboration with the developers of new units. For the moment my strat.txt contains only vanilla units. Military units are out of my range of competence (since most of you are military historians or skinners, I guess you'll be glad to hear that).

b) What I plan:
For the moment I'm planning to release this as vanilla as possible under every other point of view.
This means that I want to keep the original factions with only one exception. I want to keep even two different Roman factions (Populares=Julii and Optimates=Scipii) plus the Senate. Only the Brutii will be replaced by another Greek faction. This is needed to counterbalance the Greek cities which would otherwise occupy without any difficulty all those mini states like Elis, Delphi, Euboia, Messene, Mytilene ecc.
My plan is to call this faction The Greek Colonies. They should be led by Pyrrhus and Hieron II and at the start they should include the cities of Tarent, Syracuse, Croton, Ambracia and Massilia. In my first trial runs they often went to war with both the Greek cities and the Romans, so it looks like going in the right direction.
I know that these decisions sound delusive to all of you who want to get rid of the Roman factions and play the Illyrians or the Mauryans. But my decision is to postpone these issues. My personal point of view is that the game includes several quite useless factions. Some where historically not important enough, others are not interesting for the game.
One of the less important factions are the Dacians, but they are much fun, when you play the Macedonians. The Tracians were not very important historically and they are even less in the game. Most of the time they are just sitting there and you have to help them to survive. My opinion is that these two factions might be merged somehow.
The Scythians had no real state and they are quite useless in the game. So they might be assigned to the Slaves.
Hence my idea is that in a second stage we might introduce the Illyrians and the Mauryans.
In a third stage you might even get rid of the Roman factions and introduce whatever faction you like.

As starting year of the game I choose 280, but it might also be 300. Indeed I've come to the conclusion that time is relative in this game. If you look at it you see that this game combines political and military confrontation of at least three centuries. For instance you might even have Hannibal meet Vercingetorix or Caratacus. If we'd stick strictly to the year 280 we wouldn't have a single German, Spanish, Britain or Numidian leader and all the Gauls should be placed in Thessaly and Galatia!
So this is not going to be a simulation of the year 280, but a time warp adventure where to meet all of your ancient heroes.
This is why I created the family trees and I'm almost done. Still missing are the Romans and the Greeks. All the rest is complete, even the Illyrians and the Mauryans which are included in the Slaves family tree (I guess I still have to include the Bosphorans and some minor leaders there). I included even a number of important leaders who died shortly before 280. So if you want, playing the Antigonids or the Seleucids, you might even start the game with the battle of Ipsos in 301 BC. In the end all leaders will be historic figures and each of them will be placed in a region where he actually fought (with very few minor exceptions).

c) What I need:
To release this game I need help mostly on two points:
1. I need to create the faction of the Greek Colonies. It should be easy, just doubling the Greek cities, at least in the first place, but I don't know how to do it and it would take some time to learn it. Every help in this direction is welcome.
2. Recently, after introducing lots of leaders and units, the game has become unstable. Usually I get a CTD after one of the first turns. Hence I'd need help to debug it.

Now that's my programme. If anything doesn't sound convincing, I'd be glad to discuss with you. With a little help the rest of the work might be done in about a month. Once released, my map would be available even for what you are planning on the Historical RTW Vanilla v1.5. Just let me know what you think about it.

Well, since my notobook started this morning up again, I would be glad to help you.
1. Creating the faction greek colonies, especially just as a copy of the greek cities, is no problem. However, if you convert a roman faction to the greek colonies you will inevitably have the Senate and Senate offices tab, and random missions of the senate. If you use a non-roman faction this is no problem at all.
2. I don´t know what the error is - but you can send me the map and maybe I find the error. But if I were to guess a region isn´t coloured right (or what do you say for this? Well, at least the error is somewhere there), because I know in the SPQR 8.0 Mod the modder made a settlement in the sea, didn´t want it to be captured and just made a (wanted) error in map_regions.tga, so that if any ship coming near the island would make the game ctd. It is probably a minor error, just a field big, but if a character walks on this field the game ctd´s.

And I really appreciate the work you did by making this campaign map.

@Skull and ahowl: I just asked him something about his book, and since I am the only one here who can read it I figured I might aswell speak german as I like it more.

[Philadelphos]

Well, since my notobook started this morning up again, I would be glad to help you.
1. Creating the faction greek colonies, especially just as a copy of the greek cities, is no problem. However, if you convert a roman faction to the greek colonies you will inevitably have the Senate and Senate offices tab, and random missions of the senate. If you use a non-roman faction this is no problem at all.
2. I don´t know what the error is - but you can send me the map and maybe I find the error. But if I were to guess a region isn´t coloured right (or what do you say for this? Well, at least the error is somewhere there), because I know in the SPQR 8.0 Mod the modder made a settlement in the sea, didn´t want it to be captured and just made a (wanted) error in map_regions.tga, so that if any ship coming near the island would make the game ctd. It is probably a minor error, just a field big, but if a character walks on this field the game ctd´s.

Thanks for your help.

First the good news: The game has become stable again. I don't know what it was, but after cleaning up the Britons, Gauls and Iberians (mainly reducing the number of units which had been copied on assembly line) I got no more problems.

Yesterday I played a bit as the Slave faction and there is huge action all over the map. After three turns I had a nice battle in the Caledonian snow between british hero Caratacus and Calgacus, the first Scot in history, the guy who told the Romans they'd made the world a desert and called it peace. When I saw those chariots arrive I thought my Braveheart would have been lost, but when Caratacus was slain the Brits couldn't wait to get back to the Lowlands. Unfortunately I had only triggered medium difficulty otherwise it would have been huge.

Well, I still don't know why I can't reach up to 199 regions, but that's a minor problem, maybe related to the Time Editor. I can fix this later.

In the meantime I'm making big progress with the families. Yesterday I added the Bosphorans and the Bactrians. Today it's the Epirots and the Syracusans.

Regarding the Greek Colonies, I've change the culture of the Brutii to Greek, but this is not enough to transform them all together. Indeed, as you said, I have noted that they keep receiving orders from the Senate. I'm not sure if I got your messagge right: Will this still be the case if we completely change the name of the Brutii? Do you say that the second slot will always receive orders from the Senate, even if we put maybe Nabataeans in the place? If this is the case, I should think of a faction for which this might be only a minor problem and then change positions.
In any case I have noted that the Brutii/Greek Colonies go to war with the other Roman factions (after changing their diplomacy settings).

Thank you very much for your offer, I'll come back on it very soon and then we'll create the Western Greek faction.

[Philadelphos]

Germany is a place where you can really get lost with your legions. The rivers, except for the Rhine and Danubius, offer little orientation or protection. Here you see the German leader Arminius north of the Moenus and you can easily realize that there are too many fords to controll them all. Better build a limes if you can!
The Rhine is navigable at least until Ara Ubiorum (Cologne). All the German rivers and mountains are in the right place. Have a look at those chains surrounding Boihaemum! Regions and city names are retrieved from the Ptolemaic Magna Germania map.

[Magneto]

Thanks for your help.

First the good news: The game has become stable again. I don't know what it was, but after cleaning up the Britons, Gauls and Iberians (mainly reducing the number of units which had been copied on assembly line) I got no more problems.

My theory still holds, less units mean less probability of an army walking on a bugged field. But it is nice that it works.

Regarding the Greek Colonies, I've change the culture of the Brutii to Greek, but this is not enough to transform them all together. Indeed, as you said, I have noted that they keep receiving orders from the Senate. I'm not sure if I got your messagge right: Will this still be the case if we completely change the name of the Brutii? Do you say that the second slot will always receive orders from the Senate, even if we put maybe Nabataeans in the place? If this is the case, I should think of a faction for which this might be only a minor problem and then change positions.
In any case I have noted that the Brutii/Greek Colonies go to war with the other Roman factions (after changing their diplomacy settings).

Thank you very much for your offer, I'll come back on it very soon and then we'll create the Western Greek faction.

Well, it is not about the second slot: I somewhere saw he pic where the brutii were changed to egyptian culture, and both internal and viewable faction name were changed to something else, while It still received Senate missions. And it doesn´t have anything to do with the order of the factions. I spent a few days trying to mod the Senate for HRTW, and believe me, you can´t do anything about it. There are 2 Options left: 1. You remove a non-roman faction like Scythia.
2. If you played with the slave faction you sure have noticed they are Roman Culture, but don´t have Senate and Senate Offices Tab. This is just a Theory: You can try to swap the brutii to be the slave faction while you use the old slave faction for the greek colonies. Both the Senate and Slaves Hardcoded attributes are based on the internal faction name, while the Senate Missions are for the 3 Roman Factions no matter what the internal name is called, it might work.

A bit additional Information about the Senate: If the Brutii/Greek Colonies attack a Roman faction now, the Missions stop. But you still have the Senate Offices tab, a very angry Senate in the Senate Tab and the other 2 roman factions get missions like "Attack Outlaw Faction".

[Philadelphos]

My theory still holds, less units mean less probability of an army walking on a bugged field. But it is nice that it works.

That's right, but I haven't so much reduced the armies, but only the units in each army. So unless they split (which doesn't happen too often) the impact on walking around should not be too great.
I discovered another reason for CTD. It also happens when one of the capitals is lost due to civil unrest. I gave the Cyclades to Egypt and since the Time Editor orders my regions from north to south, they became the Egyptian capital. Ath the time I had no army or temple in there and the game always crashed after the second turn, until I gave that city back to the slaves. Maybe something similar happened even this time and I corrected it by putting an army in the place.

Well, it is not about the second slot: I somewhere saw he pic where the brutii were changed to egyptian culture, and both internal and viewable faction name were changed to something else, while It still received Senate missions. And it doesn´t have anything to do with the order of the factions. I spent a few days trying to mod the Senate for HRTW, and believe me, you can´t do anything about it. There are 2 Options left: 1. You remove a non-roman faction like Scythia.
2. If you played with the slave faction you sure have noticed they are Roman Culture, but don´t have Senate and Senate Offices Tab. This is just a Theory: You can try to swap the brutii to be the slave faction while you use the old slave faction for the greek colonies. Both the Senate and Slaves Hardcoded attributes are based on the internal faction name, while the Senate Missions are for the 3 Roman Factions no matter what the internal name is called, it might work.

Thanks, this is very important information that helps to spare a lot of time. I already thought about swapping Bruti/Greek Colonies and slaves, but your idea is even more complete.

A bit additional Information about the Senate: If the Brutii/Greek Colonies attack a Roman faction now, the Missions stop. But you still have the Senate Offices tab, a very angry Senate in the Senate Tab and the other 2 roman factions get missions like "Attack Outlaw Faction".

This sounds really interesting. As a matter of fact, it might turn out a good boost for the developement of the Roman Empire. Indeed I think, if Rome wants to grow, Tarent and Syracuse need to be crushed. So the only doubt is whether lead them against the Slaves or the Greek colonies. For the elegance of the game it might be better to have them fight against the slaves. This would give Rome a huge conquest programme!

One point I wanted to correct is the Senate's military attitude. I found them always very timid. They never attack anybody and I wanted them to take a more active role in some area. Have you got some idea?
I also noted one meccanism that seems to make sure that no army attacks if they don't have a neighboring retreat city. For instance, I placed Gauls in Anatolia, but they did nothing there, until I gave them the region of Galatia. After I did they immediately started attacking neighboring cities like Pessinus in Phrygia.
In the same manner Brennus in Thessaly and other Gauls in Thrace never do nothing. I also placed a Senatorial army in Bruttium, suggesting that they'd take Rhegium, but they never did. How is it possible to overcome this problem? Is "preference for marittime invasion" a solution? There is such an option in the factions file, but I noted that all factions are triggered to "land invasion". So I changed the Greek cities, but to the moment I can't tell any difference.

[Magneto]

This sounds really interesting. As a matter of fact, it might turn out a good boost for the developement of the Roman Empire. Indeed I think, if Rome wants to grow, Tarent and Syracuse need to be crushed. So the only doubt is whether lead them against the Slaves or the Greek colonies. For the elegance of the game it might be better to have them fight against the slaves. This would give Rome a huge conquest programme!

One point I wanted to correct is the Senate's military attitude. I found them always very timid. They never attack anybody and I wanted them to take a more active role in some area. Have you got some idea?
I also noted one meccanism that seems to make sure that no army attacks if they don't have a neighboring retreat city. For instance, I placed Gauls in Anatolia, but they did nothing there, until I gave them the region of Galatia. After I did they immediately started attacking neighboring cities like Pessinus in Phrygia.
In the same manner Brennus in Thessaly and other Gauls in Thrace never do nothing. I also placed a Senatorial army in Bruttium, suggesting that they'd take Rhegium, but they never did. How is it possible to overcome this problem? Is "preference for marittime invasion" a solution? There is such an option in the factions file, but I noted that all factions are triggered to "land invasion". So I changed the Greek cities, but to the moment I can't tell any difference.

The Senate´s AI is hardcoded - However, if they have 2 Cities these Hardcoded parameters don´t apply anymore, and they will attack friend or foe like any other faction. Did you notice the Senate has no ships? Pretty illogical, one would think, till you give them ships and they start to blockade your ports out of no reason - somehow ships and a second settlement break the hardcoded AI. Why the other factions didn´t do anything I don´t know.
And to prefers_naval_invasions: Some of the factions are hardcoded for naval invasions, like the greek cities. If you give them a city in Italy they will invade Rome per naval invasions. However, most of the hardcoded AI is still a mistery.

And I like your idea - Campaigning as Rome could be much more fun.

[Philadelphos]

The Senate´s AI is hardcoded - However, if they have 2 Cities these Hardcoded parameters don´t apply anymore, and they will attack friend or foe like any other faction. Did you notice the Senate has no ships? Pretty illogical, one would think, till you give them ships and they start to blockade your ports out of no reason - somehow ships and a second settlement break the hardcoded AI. Why the other factions didn´t do anything I don´t know.
And to prefers_naval_invasions: Some of the factions are hardcoded for naval invasions, like the greek cities. If you give them a city in Italy they will invade Rome per naval invasions. However, most of the hardcoded AI is still a mistery.

And I like your idea - Campaigning as Rome could be much more fun.

I have long given the Senate a second region. It was one of my first changes. But I can't confirm what you say, that they attack other factions. Yesterday I have seen that they aren't even at war with the slaves. They aren't at war with anybody, unless the other Roman factions are attacked. So it seems they will never go to war with the slaves and it's a pity, because if we can't change it the Senate armies are pretty useless and they will never expand anywhere. If it is hardcoded, it is really stupid. In any case a nation with only one region rarely attacks anyone. I've seen it with the Thracians.

These hardcode limits are one reason among many why the swap between Greek Colonies and Slaves won't work. The Slaves are not less hardcoded than the Senate. Most of all they got all those subfactions.

I can't confirm though that the Senate never has ships. If I remember well, in my first game as Julii (or was it the Greeks, maybe both) they had a huge fleet of 20 biremes and it cost me a lot of time and money to hunt them down.
But maybe you intended to give them a fleet from the start. Well, I'll try that out.

In the meantime I'll have to strenghten the Julli and the Scipii to get them into Balcan and Sicilian wars. Yesterday the Scipii at least managed to take Rhegium (with some difficulty), but they failed with Messana where Cios of the Mamertines turned out unbeatable.
I haven't yet edited the Roman armies, so they are still pretty weak and I had a lazy day as Pyrrhus.

After all the senate orders aren't too annoying. I earned 10000 denarii for capturing Apollonia and I think that's acceptable.
Btw, I have noticed that the Senate button has disappeared since I changed the Bruti culture to Greek. So this problem has been solved and the others are not so bad for the moment, especially since they all will disappear as soon as the Colonies and Rome go to war. Yesterday I had no fun doing so because I knew that the opposing armies were not ready. And the Romans had no reason to complain or didn't dare to.