Some new graphics for HTW review panel

[macsen rufus]

Hi everyone - one thing I find hard in HTW is seeing how developed my provinces are - you know, having to right-click an icon to get the parchment to see whether it's basic, a workshop, or a guild etc. This means you can't flick through quickly looking eg for your +3 valour bowyer when you forget which province it's in!

So here's my solution, and if anyone else likes it feel free to download. It is a new set of graphics for the review panel showing the upgrades buildings have... here's an example, I'm sure you'll see the difference.



For more info: See the readme page

You can download a 90k ZIP from there.

Enjoy...

[flip]

Good one Rufus,

It seems a good solution, I can't test it for now, but someone can post some comments?

[Mujalumbo]

I downloaded the graphics this past weekend.

I'm running MTW:VI 201, HTW 3.1 beta. The graphics showed up fine for weapons, armour, brothels, drinking dens, archers, horse-breeders, and shiprights upgrades. Additionally, little "parchment" icons showed up in the review panel for buildings which granted titles to bestow.

I've only tested with the Greek factions, and haven't tested with the barbarians or Persians, but they seemed to work for those factions as well. (Clicking on the province when I owned an adjacent province with watchtowers, for instance.)

Any questions, please let me know.
Happy to help.

[macsen rufus]

Hi and thanks Mujalumbo - I'm also working on an HTW unit guide, which is basically stripping out the stats and basic unit info from the hellenic_prod2 files into HTML, hope to have that up over the weekend.

Unit Guide

I've only done the two "title" buildings so far as I tested it on the Lax, and they only have the two titles (Lohagos and Dikastis), and I'm not sure that will ever show titles accurately for every faction.

I'm currently playing HTW3.1 with the economy patch and BA add-on, and making cumulative corrections to names and text as I find them, too. I hope to end up with Bronze Age through to the Wars of the Successors (though it may take a while.....)

[Mujalumbo]

Good to hear people are still working on this mod. There are people who haven't immediately jumped on the RTW bandwagon, and mods like these greatly enhance MTW's replayability. I know next to nothing about modding, but I have free time and would be glad to help with testing and the like.

[macsen rufus]

I started learning about modding once I downloaded HTW.... it's not so frightening messing about inside a mod as on the original game The various modding forums here are very informative, too (Thanks everyone!)

At the moment, I'm just smoothing over some of the rougher bits in HTW, and will continue to make available anything I do. I'm NOT aiming at a complete re-mod, but it would be nice if someone else was testing my stuff, too.

I don't have RTW - my machine is too slow and clunky, though it copes with MTW. Once I found Hellenic, I stopped saving up for the new computer for RTW. It's a really nice mod, and nicely fills the 'ancient' slot in playable eras, imho.

[dimitrios the samian]

Rufus well done !! I have just downloaded your review panel update and will be tying it out soon . Its good to see somebody apart from the makers put in a little effort to make a great game better and quicker with simple modifications to portray vital information .
I look forward to your next update and also perhaps some new castle pictures on those parchments ! as some of those flat grey one's are hardly noticeable and something more Grand would be nicer .
All i can say is brilliant I also like your unit guide very much .
You have just re-ignited my passion for this awesome game , So it will be less time on the golf course and racetrack and more time out on the battlefeild !!

cheers
Dimitrios

[macsen rufus]

So it will be less time on the golf course and racetrack and more time out on the battlefeild !!

Well, that has to be good news


I've been making progress on the Bronze Age too, finishing off some of the unit graphics etc, and I've also sorted the dreaded "Spartan crash" and I can now play all factions in BA Early. I will make new files available when I'm happy with the results, but for a quick and easy try I'd suggest this:

open the Bronze Age heroes file, and delete all the famous kings and heroes from each faction. I'm not sure WHAT the problem was yet, but I suspect a formatting error somewhere (I had an error showing a King Achilles the -1st, which MTW didn't like).

I'm making some extra faction shields so that all 25 BA factions have unique shields and colours; I have issues with the names files for each culture (All Greek Kings are called Achilles, for example); the unit_prod file needs some work so that units are spread around the tech tree (currently everything comes from muster field, so valour upgrades etc don't work - but this is ok, the original mods left it in easy condition to work on). Basically, I'm just trying to finish off the BA add-on.

Let me know if you spot any more review panel graphics that could benefit from a change. At present I have my eyes on the trader+ line, with maybe piles of coins, and something for estate+, maybe crowns.

BUT my laptop screen has died, and I can only get on with it when I can borrow a monitor.... doh!

PS: I also have pre-battle shields and battle banners working in BA, too

[dimitrios the samian]

Hi Rufus
Good to hear from you but , badluck with your screen , I hope you get it working again very soon So you can continue your work refining this great Mod .
I haven't downloaded Bronze Age yet , but will do so so in the coming weeks .
Its fantastic to hear you have made heaps of progress on that as well .
Ok ... 1st I will import your graphics into my game and start a fresh campaign and then I will start taking notes and idea's for further refinements .
I have many ideas but absolutely no knowledge on how where to start or if they are possible .
I will talk to you again very soon .....

[macsen rufus]

No need to start a new campaign, they'll show up in any Hellenic campaign once installed.

As for the screen, I really need a whole new machine - it's on its second hard drive, and has an external CD ROM drive now, as the internal one died. So much for the laptop idea - it now needs more peripherals than a desktop! It will come apart in the morning, I suspect it's just a dodgy connector somewhere.

[macsen rufus]

Screen fixed (for now) so I've been able to get on with the BA files. I've made a ZIP archive of files to replace into Hellenic to get Bronze Age working.

If you want to give it a try, it's at
Macsen_Rufus_BA_Quickfix

This should just change some shields, some colours, and the graphics associated with the new BA units. Oh, and also the heroes are cleared. No crashes so far, Sparta is playable.

Here's the new colour scheme, proof that Sparta works (even though they look like HRE right now), and a Bronze Age battle screenshot of Greek militia and militia spears trying to cross a river.



EDIT: I have now made a few changes to the BAH_UNIT_PROD file so that a rudimentary tech-tree applies. Also I have pulled in slingers, and Cretan archers from the main HTW. As this is a testing file, all BA units have been made available in all BA periods in this version.

Get it here

[dimitrios the samian]

Hi Rufus
Breifly ,, The updated graphics worked no problems , on my existing campaign and on a new one I have just started .
I have started gathering images as I agree with you to many of those Review Panel Bifs are hard to interpret .
I beleive the Armorer ones look like an artist hand holding a brush ?, that one would be better suited with an image of a breastplate helmet and greave .
Also the Brothel one is strange , for that i would prefer a semi-erotic image of a few girls " plenty of those around " .
Not so important but probably easy to modify are some of the troop images on the training panel and description parchments ,, eg those Companions look like underfed camels ,, I been looking hard to find an image for these .
I don't mean to offend anyone but I'm sure when the boys were making the Mod they used the best images they had found .
So Rufus I will get back to you in a few days with some images for you to consider ,, cheers

[macsen rufus]

Thanks for the feedback Dimitrios, and glad it helps the HTW experience for you I have also been raiding a few more images from the internet in the course of my recent research (and found where some of the HTW originals came from... shhhh!) So when I have enough gathered together for the next batch, I'll have another session with Photoshop & ReadBIF.

I quite like the brothel one, the dusky maiden retreating (or advancing) up the stairs, seems suggestive enough. The "title" buildings will be hardest to get right as they aren't the same for all factions.

I know I said I wasn't going to do a full mod, but it is looking tempting now, thinking of a Europe-wide Bronze Age on the original MTW map, 1300-1100BC, approx. An interesting period - Egypt, Hittites, Assyria, the Exodus, proto-Halstatt about to invent the Naue sword and wipe the map with it, Uneticians settling Britain, Iberians, Puni, The Sea Peoples, proto-Nordics, steppe nomads... with the emphasis very much on the tech-tree. It was an era of social and technological revolutions, not to mention a few natural disasters to shake things up occasionally.

BUT not til I've finished the main HTW tidy-up !

[dimitrios the samian]

Sounds good Rufus but stairs could lead anywere ? .... The images I have collected so far are definately worth a look , just one glance and you know your at a Greek brothel .
What do you think of the Armorer bif ? ....
I must admit those Ship ones are tricky and also the merchant ones .
Anyway Im also searching for a decent Companion .
Talk more later ....

[macsen rufus]

I might have some good photos from when I went to Pompeii as a teenager, I do remember quite vividly the "brothel murals" and the rather obvious door-sign.... Unfortunately they're not here with me at the moment. Anyway, I'd love to see what you collect.

If I add in some Amazons will that help the nip count?

Quick warning: the unit prod changes below might have got corrupted, so I'll check that file again soon, and the full batch of 25 shields/new colours will soon be finished. The hard part will be reassigning the BA factions to faction numbers so that the BA Athenians, Spartans, Thebans (eg) have the same colours as the later Athenians, Lacadaemonians and Boetians from other campaigns etc. I would like that consistency of faction colours between eras.

Armourer - yes, I do see what you mean about the paintbrush! I've found some nice sites featuring Greek arms and armour recently, so I'll see what images they may have for that one.

Anyway Im also searching for a decent Companion .

Isn't this where some wag says you should get out more and not play on your PC so much

[dimitrios the samian]

I found some nice Companions !! and some excellent Erotic art which will be perfect for the Brothel bif in the review panel and Parchment scrolls .
Will go for a little surf and see what I can come up with for an Armorer .
If your ready Rufus let me know your email address and i will start sending em to you .

[macsen rufus]

Thanks for those - I've PM'd my email to you - I'm afraid I don't have direct internet access from my own machine for a few weeks, and have to transfer stuff by old fashioned floppy, so if there's more than 1.4Mb can you break them into multiple packages? That'd be a great help. Cheers for now.

[dimitrios the samian]

Hi Rufus
I will send over those images to you very soon ,, got some interesting one's in there .
Im no modder but with your improvements already plus a few more to come HTW is alive and well for me .
I will attempt to make some Historical Battles there's a great guide that seems easy to follow So im gonna give it a go .
I hope the Bronze Age beta has some Mesopotamians in it , now thats one era thats only ever been mentioned by very few downloading it as I write .

[macsen rufus]

I've just posted up version 2.0 of the graphics package with some redone and some new ones (including trader+, 4 diff. armourer+, new metalsmith, and estate+).

You can get it from the link in my original post above. Now I need zzzzz, it's 4am.... what, me, obssessed???

Latest:



And finally the "XXX" brothel graphics

(Thanks to Dimitrios )

[dimitrios the samian]

Well Done Rufus .... ....they look great ..
I will be in touch with a few more ideas and bifs ....

[macsen rufus]

Glad you like it!

I've also udated the BA "Quick fix", the links to it above still work. Finally sorted unique flags for factions 15-25 that actually have a transparent layer this time...

[Lord Zimoa of Flanders]

Dear Rufus,

If it is ok with you, I have build a new patch with the Economy Patch,the BA expansion and all your add-ons in it as a new HTW Total Patch.
Some people should test it before it goes public.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=44784

You are mentioned on the HTW site and in the readme for your work .
Really appreciate the energy you have put in.

LZoF

[macsen rufus]

Great idea - I'm part-way through re-installing everything as a final check, then I will have a definitive set of files. Some of the shields may show green backgrounds in the last lot I did - I am fixing these, but they're not posted up yet.

The one other thing I was intending to do was re-arrange some of the faction numbers so that BA Spartans get the same shield as later Lacedaemonians etc, but it looks complex. As I understand it, the SHL files can only be set by faction number rather than a name, and that's what's holding me up. I can see no other way than to declare the factions in a different order, and that requires LOADS of files to be changed. This is probably why I've been putting it off

My pleasure, glad to be able to contribute to this excellent mod!