Minor adjustments

[ScionTheWorm]

I thought we could use a thread for discussing minor adjustments to the mod. In fact I have a few ideas, which I think we should implement

1.) Smaller trees on battlemap

2.) More death in naval battles

3.) "Culture conversion" simulated with buildings in some way...

4.) More civilization objects on campaignmap (towns etc.)

5.) Another font? Don't know if this is possible... but it probably is if the letters are stored in a .tga or something, so we could just replace the letter in their unique position in that imagefile.

6.) New traits for the cultures

And I think we also should have fleets instead of single ships. Then we can't transport an army of 2000 with a fishing boat. Could be easy done with some duplicating in photoshop, along with stats.

Edit:
I also think we should "mtw" the mod as much as we can... great gameplay in that game. Slow battles down is one way to make the battles more memorable, and this is in legios plan I think.

I've also noticed a lot of small AI-mods have been made. Don't know very much about this subject, but if there is something that we could use, we could ask the creator if we could use it. For instance, I've seen mods making improvements regarding AI start formations...

More than two turns a year is also possible, but I guess this won't make the gameplay better in anyway because we have to wait a loong time for a certain building to be built or getting certain units.

[skeletor]

Chivalery's fixed "giant forest"
http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/fo...ic=2352&st=640

I wold allso like to see the muslim factions getting more middleeast style buildings on the campaignmap, with minaret's and mosaic coting.

-Skel-

[Incongruous]

Yes slower battles would be good, the idea of navies is great.
Just one idea/question. Would we be able to hand out titles at all?
An idea with the pope, you know in RTW they have certain positions, how about you have the pope give them out, the top prize being Holy Roman Emperor. Oh my gosh I just had an idea, how about using the three Roman families system for the three Frankik Kingdoms, you know all allied to the pope and each other, go out conquering, main goal to be, well, perhaps Holy Roman emperor, that means that the highest office available from the pope could be something else. Is this possible?, man it would be awsome, and really make this MOD stand out.

[ScionTheWorm]

actually I think that is the plan, but I think it's not to that extent... the "title" holy roman empire wasn't handed out by the pope anyway, was it? I think french, hre and lotherangia is going to be the three roman families and to some extent get directed by the pope (senate). How and how much I guess is still a unansweared question; if legio knows, I think he is the only one...

[Incongruous]

Yes I beleive the pope did hand it out. But you could gain it by conquering the papacy.
Also, the colours in RTW are to bloody phsycadelic. Could we darken and dim things, that would make it really cool. Also, are you going to voice MOD.

[ScionTheWorm]

a voicemod takes a lot of time, and nobody on the team has actually planned to do this I think. the original ones wouldn't fit at all I think, so I would reather cut the voices if it was up to me.

1.) darken and dim things up is a part of the plan

2.) I also think we should slightly enhance or change the colors in the campaignmap tiles - just to give it our own feelin. we could either give it some more colors and contrasts, or we could desaturate it. it would only be very slight ajustments, but I think it would be great. could "dirt" things up a little. would be very little work except for the experimenting-part. got the idea from eb. don't know if they've done it, but I think it looked to me like they have.

for instance, think dark greyish north sea.

3.) by the way, I also wish to cut the time limit in battles, and I think you all agree....

4.) and I think we should do something about the attack settlement battles, they just aren't memorable enough. huger cites, and maybe harder to get in (stronger walls). bigger forts.

5.) Smaller campaignmap characters?

[Incongruous]

Yeah those are great ideas.
Aren't you guys going to increase the scale of the map i.e, same circumfrance but bigger,take more time to travel.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

You shouldn't take more time to travel - take less! It already takes forever to go anywhere in RTW. If you increase the size, increase travel distances, or something!

[ScionTheWorm]

You shouldn't take more time to travel - take less! It already takes forever to go anywhere in RTW. If you increase the size, increase travel distances, or something!

I agree. Huger map could be cool, but then I would vote for minimum double distances. Boats will have increased distances, and longboats most of them all...

By the way I think we should make the mod for BI. We won't manage to release this before months after it comes out anyway, so I don't think this is an obstacle. Just my opinion as I think there will be lot of upgrades and new features...

[Incongruous]

Yeah thats a great idea, they'll utilise religion in the same way they did for Medieval (also, you will be able to revert back to your previous pagan religion if you think it will bring you victory), plus the new horde option which will be good for the Steppe nations. Plus all the other cool new additions such as civil wars i.e Me general tink I better dan u, so me fight u and become emperor, hehe.

Huh! just realised, I'm a f**kin member, Partey!


Oh, and umm, am I allowed to use the sig

[ScionTheWorm]

Congrats!

of course you may use the sig.

is it really that much mtw-stuff in BI?

[Incongruous]

Yeah there really is, check out the link:

http://www.totalwar.com/community/rtwbi.htm

[ScionTheWorm]

Looking at "New Game Features"

"Barbarian Hordes - A barbarian faction can flee en masse from an attacker and take its entire people in search of a new homeland. When a faction loses its last settlement the entire population can move as a series of horde armies. If - and when - the faction manage to conquer a new homeland region, the people can again settle and begin life anew. While a faction is ‘on the road’ it can’t recruit new units other than mercenaries, but it doesn’t pay any upkeep on its armies. Hordes are a ‘get out of jail’ card for some factions facing defeat - or they may just get hacked to pieces as they run! "

I don't know what we could use this for, but it sounds cool...

"New Units - New factions means new units! In fact, almost every unit in BI is new. This means that there are plenty of new tactical tricks to discover, strengths to play up, and weaknesses to exploit! Every faction in the game has a ‘signature’ unit that is unique to them, such as the axe-throwing Francisca Heerbann of the Franks to the ultra-heavy Sassanid Clibinarii cavalry. Even apparently familiar units have been revised."

Could be nice, but i guess we have a nice unit list when this comes out anyway...

"New Special Abilities - Some units in the game have new special abilities. The Shield Wall allows barbarian elites to ‘lock’ themselves into a defensive stance and withstand frontal attacks. The Schiltron is a defensive ‘hedgehog’ formation for spear-armed troops - great for withstanding cavalry, but very vulnerable to missile fire. Swimming allows light troops to cross rivers and flank defenders who think they are safe at one end of a bridge or ford!"

No idea... swimming across rivers sounds nice

"A modified technology tree - allows barbarians to build and expand larger settlements. It also includes new buildings to reflect the changed importance given to religion at this time in history. "

Nice with larger settlements...

"A new campaign map - Europe and the Empire have changed after 350 years of Roman rule since the end of the main Rome: Total War campaign. The new map reflects the shifts in population and wealth that have gone on."

No importance...

"Religion - is now an important factor. Christianity has become the dominant religion of the Empire, but it’s your choice whether or not to revert to paganism in the hope that this will bring victory. Barbarian factions can convert, opening up new parts of the technology tree in the process."



"Generals - can now be recruited as well as adopted into the family. There are also new vices and virtues as well as ancillary characters for generals’ retinues.


"Rebellions - can now flare up into full-fledged civil wars. Your generals can decide that they would make better kings or emperors than the current rulers and take matters into their own hands!"
yes!!



but I guess this will screw up the pope-thing...

"And goodbye to the Senate! That old favourite enemy of Rome: Total War players everywhere is now a toothless talking shop with no power over the fate of the Empire. Instead: worry about the Huns! "

I think it sounds really good.... and the graphics is made more to the time we're in, meaning we hopefully don't have to make new graphics for for instance "faction leader dies"

[Incongruous]

Yeah, the pope thing sucks, but who cares about that, what real power did the pope have then, dealing with newly converted hulking Germanics.

"New Special Abilities - Some units in the game have new special abilities. The Shield Wall allows barbarian elites to ‘lock’ themselves into a defensive stance and withstand frontal attacks. The Schiltron is a defensive ‘hedgehog’ formation for spear-armed troops - great for withstanding cavalry, but very vulnerable to missile fire."
thats great as well, we can now have the shield wall.

[ScionTheWorm]

I like the idea, the pope thing is not crucial...

would love to hear others opinion on this. we could possibly be on of the first major mods for BI

[Incongruous]

Yes winning over fans is crucial, just look at what happened to RTR, they are huge!
Can anyone create a website where we can publish info like faction desriptions, and overview and screenies.

[Incongruous]

Ok, I really think we should use a four seasons system.
But would it be kind of odd i.e its autumn but its like summer or its like winter.
Or is there a way to make sure that weather patterns change for the seasons, e.g in summer there is hardly any rain, but in autumn there is a bit more and maybe if we have a somone who is willing some new autumn looking trees.

Also, just a question, what siftware can I get to start skinning?

[ScionTheWorm]

get trials for adobe photoshop (www.adobe.com) and 3d studio max 7. they will expire in 30 days so that sucks.... it's a problem for a lot of us

about the 4 season system, I think it's a good idea, but it may affect gameplay as it takes twice as much time to get to a certain year (and technology).

[Incongruous]

Yes but it will make conquering so much better, and we can edit the biuld times, I'm starting to fiddle around with that.

Also, this is just a little thing, change the term recriut to call-to-arms. Then it would justify the fact that a unit will only take a turn to biuld. Because to train a new night it would take years.
Oh and, with the new Feudal type societies that srang up is there a way of increasing the up-keep of a unit after a certain amount of time, this would represent the feudal obligations of men to only owe their Lord a certain amount of service time a year. This should be used on the units that were raised in time of war, the elite standing army-core would have a sustained upkeep, if thats possible.

[ScionTheWorm]

Yes but it will make conquering so much better, and we can edit the biuld times, I'm starting to fiddle around with that.

Also, this is just a little thing, change the term recriut to call-to-arms. Then it would justify the fact that a unit will only take a turn to biuld. Because to train a new night it would take years.
Oh and, with the new Feudal type societies that srang up is there a way of increasing the up-keep of a unit after a certain amount of time, this would represent the feudal obligations of men to only owe their Lord a certain amount of service time a year. This should be used on the units that were raised in time of war, the elite standing army-core would have a sustained upkeep, if thats possible.

call-to-arms: good point!
increasing after certain amount of time: don't think so..

very good you're fiddling around, just keep in mind that we haven't taken a decision. and that BI might look different, allthough I doubt it.

[skeletor]

The Call-to-arms idea is great, but i think that have to be applied to all Recrouting.. .Anyway i think call to arms wold be more accurat for all factions.

Allso having 4 seasons wold make the weather play a mutch more vital role. I'm not sure if you can change the weatherconditions for Spring and fall (but in some mods, there is alot more bad weather...RTR), but in the northern regions you could have snow for 3 of the four seasons, making it hard for non viking factions to conquer the northern regions other then in summertime(unit's with snow bonus) same applies to the eastern factions with their desert bonus.

-Skel-

[Incongruous]

Glad you liked the Call-To-Arms idea.
Also, it seems stupid to be able to recriut the better troop types afer you have biult the right barracks, so is there anyway to make it that you have to have certain tecs before you can get a unit. e.g the highest level armourer befroe you can get heavily armoured knights.
Now that we have decided on the Call-To-Arms thing, the term barracks deos not fit, what could replace it?

[skeletor]

I think we must have the barracs in, so that you have a facility to train the unit's that you want to call to arms.

Allso, i think you could add any building as a requirement for training unit's, allso new modded buildings. The problem here is to get the AI to build those. If the building doesn't directly benifit the AI, they won't build it, and then not being able to get the elite unit's. Then you get the problem with AI stacks of crappy troops.

Thus having a higher level of Weaponsmith as a requirement for heavyer unit's shouldnt be a problem..

-Skel-

[Incongruous]

No I meant keep the barracks concept but scrap the name, I beleive we could call it the Wepantake or the Hundred, this is the basic subdivision of the region/shire and remained the theoretical basis of Millitary organisation for the Englisc up until the succesion of the Angevins.

[skeletor]

Ok, but here the game comprimise comes in. If were not making unique buildings for all factions, the name must apply for everyone from the Scots to the Abbasids. It might be possible to add uniqe names for the diffrent cultures, and if so i agree that it wold give the you a bether feel of the culture. I haven't edited any buildings yet, so i'm not really sure what's possible, and how mutch work it is.

But it wold be really cool having all native names for cultures too. (thus thearabic names wold be a pain.)

-Skel-

[ScionTheWorm]

I've never liked the "barracks" concept, so the option is to abstract it.
but then it should be done with everything (bowmaker, horsefarmer) for all factions. If you're able to coming up with a complete concept here, it might be a thing to consider

[skeletor]

I'll start looking at viking "trainingfields" right away...

I'll allso see if i can find some for the Muslims..

-Skel-

[Incongruous]

Well, we could use Hundred's Wepantake for the Vikings and Englisc.
For the more Feudilised Frankish nations you could use the name of the place that all the armed men in a district would meet. Something like a manor or castle.

[Ranika]

Gaels usually trained in open fields, forests, and in swamps; local troops were generally just limited by the local flath(chief)'s armoury. They should probably be limited based on some armoury structure or weapon/armor smiths (or both). However, there were formalized combat schools (like a martial arts school), but they were generally patronned only by the very wealthy, and were usually intended more as a personal combat type of thing, though usually Ridire and other high position retainers were sent to them, but it may be a superflous inclusion.

[ScionTheWorm]

Okay this is actually a friggin great idea. Remember we'll need 3(?) levels for each faction/culture.

Bopa: please give some reasons for your choices or some kind of description.