"Alexander - Nice and Slow" mini-mod released (for ATW).

**econ21** · 10-15-2006, 21:33

With the sad death of Lusted's awesome looking Alexandros mod, I've decided to edit a few text files in the Alexander Total War expansion so it plays a little more to my taste. I'm making them publicly available - they may appeal to fans of EB/RTR style battle speeds.

The mini-mod is available here:

http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Rt...oad/ANS1.0.zip

This is the readme:

Alexander Nice and Slow Readme

OVERVIEW

This is a mini-mod that edits a few text files to change the way the Alexander Total War game plays. There are two main changes: the campaign is tweaked to be winnable without exterminating any cities (the "nice" part); and the combat is slowed down so that battles last a little longer (the "slow" part). There are no new unit graphics, maps or playable factions.

INSTALLATION

Extract the contents of the zip file into your main Rome Total War directory (e.g. on my computer c:\program files\activision\Rome Total War\). This will overwrite some text files, but also create an ATW-backup, which has the originals ATW text files.

To uninstall the mod, select the two subdirectories in ATW-backup and copy them into your main Rome Total War directory. This will overwrite the modded files with the originals.

DETAIL OF MOD CHANGES

CAMPAIGN

1. A new line of buildings has been created - settlement "riches" - and placed in each Persian and barbarian settlement. On occupation, instead of exterminating the population, demolish these buildings for a cash injection. The money raised will typically be less than you would get from extermination, but since the population will still be alive and paying taxes, you should come out ahead in the long run. Exterminating and demolishing the riches will unbalance the game - do one or the other, not both.

2. To help with the loyalty problems of managing large non-exterminated cities, governor's buildings have been given a bonus to happiness and law.

3. Mines have been made a little more lucrative.

4. Companions are no longer recruitable as mercenaries.

BATTLEFIELD

1. Terrain modifiers have been reduced to lower movement speeds to around 80% of their originals.

2. Kill rates in melee have been lowered. The lethality parameter has been reduced from 1 to 0.4 for infantry; and 0.8 for cavalry.

3. Morale has been raised by 4, except for peasants, skirmishers, slingers and foot archers

4. Missile stats have been tweaked - skirmisher javelins are more lethal (attack 9 rather than 6); Rhodians have been weakened (6 rather than 9); sling ranges have been increased but their ammunition reduced.

5. All general's bodyguards now have just one hit point, including Alexander. (Be careful with him!)

6. The stats of the hypaspists have been re-worked to make them superior to phalanxes. They have been given armour comparable to companions. They should now be useful in one of their historical roles, as assault troops (e.g. in storming cities). To balance this, their cost has increased, their unit size reduced, they take two turns to build and their order in the tech tree has been switched with phalanxes. Enjoy but don't spam these units.

7. The anti-cavalry bonus of spears has been raised to 12.

8. Phalanxes and hoplites have had their mass increased to 1.25, so they can push back other infantry.

SUGGESTED HOUSE RULES

1. No extermination (except once or twice - I believe Alexander exterminated around three cities).
2. No retraining (except ships and full strength units).
3. Demolish all troop training facilities in captured settlements (to slow down recruitment of new units).
4. Allow one ship to only transfer one ground unit at a time (makes crossing the Bosphorus more tense).
5. Turn off fatigue (the AI can't handle it).
6. Go easy on slingers and archers - maybe two per stack max.
7. Don't recruit peasants.

FEEDBACK

Please leave any feedback in a forum on which this mod is announced or send a private message to me, econ21 on the totalwar.org site.

I'm particularly interested in how people find the economy and loyalty of non-exterminated cities - too loose; too tight; just right?

POSSIBLE FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR THE MOD

Given this is just a mini-mod, I am not sure I will work further on it. It is mainly for my own use, so I can play the original campaign without having to exterminate everywhere and without frenetically paced battles.

Some ideas I would like to develop if I have time, would be:

1. Bring the Indians into the campaign (as BKB has done)
2. Use some existing user-created unit skins.
3. Introduce a government system to delay recruitment of troops in captured towns, like those of RTR and EB. Make Pella able to recruit all troop types from the beginning.
4. Possibly use a campaign map created by another user.