Htw Spin-off Mod - Ancient: TW

[macsen rufus]

Hi there Dimitrios! Good to see you around again - how can I forget the guy that emailed those pics?

It's taken me a while to get back to finishing off the Bronze Age scenario, as I mentioned above, my last computer died on me and all the old work was lost - including my Roman Invasion one (Britannia 43, I called it) -- that will take ages to redo, so it's on a back burner for now. I had loads of extra stuff gathered together for the BA project though, lots of new ship images etc, but it's all gone, or locked away on a disc I can't recover .... I know, I know, back ups!!!

Anyway, I've finally got a new PC, back into HTW and relearning all the modding I'd forgotten over the past year or so. Hopefully I'll be able to finish off the Bronze Age campaigns for HTW BA one day - I just found my old notes last night, so I can recreate a lot of the lost work. Meanwhile, I'm working on the Bronze Age Europe "cross-mod". I won't be making any new units as such, just recycling HTW models.

I've got them ported across to the XL map okay, had a few battles as the Egyptians and Hittites, and making steady progress. I'm concentrating on the Egyptians first. Anyway, a couple of tasters for you...

Starting provinces:



Egyptian campaign:




I still have lots of research to do, but it seems Bronze Age warfare was mostly chariots supported by spears and archers, with a few local variants. Getting into western europe things are a lot vaguer, with fewer chariots, more general "tribal" types etc.

16 factions so far but might consider others: Ligurians, Phoenicians, Israelites, "The Sea Peoples", Sicels, Canaanites... The problem is that the Middle East is the most interesting area, but doesn't have enough provinces. I know someone once was making a mid-east campmap, and I'd love to get my hands on that!

No promises on whether it will ever be releasable, or how long it will all take, but I'll try.

@Axel - yes, you've got the latest versions of HTW and the patch, but the factionshields have been redone since that one, and I think I have some newer .txt files too. I'll do a new install and see what has changed since then.

[dimitrios the samian]

Macsen ,, You are keen !! Seems like it will be a labour of love for you ,, Have you played Rome TW yet ? Im sure if you are going to put so much work into a project it would be better to do it on a platform thats very very popular ! I would be willing to help as much as possible ,, they currently have a Rise of Persia mod happening and also a Hellenic version as well ,, nothing Bronze Age or Old Kingdom Egyptian so it would be a definate goer and im sure plenty of modders would jump aboard to help out ,, cheers ,, DTS

[axel]

Hi mate,
It looks really great i think there will be a lot of people playing this mod mate

(Macsen ,, You are keen !! Seems like it will be a labour of love for you ,, Have you played Rome TW yet ? Im sure if you are going to put so much work into a project it would be better to do it on a platform thats very very popular !) Who sais this is not verry popular ? mate i think there will be a lot of people playing this mod mate

[dimitrios the samian]

Hi Axel ,, Like Mac say's it may never make it out their ,, I wish HTW was still as popular as it was in its heyday ....but it isn't !! check the thread index .... zilch !!! sad but true ,, Seems like other mods are still very popular XL & a few more ,, Like i said earlier I will be reloading MTW + its mods to give em all another crack ... Anyway should Macsen complete the Broze Age I definately want a copy !!! .. By the way have you got Fall of Rome 3.1 yet ?

[axel]

Hi mate,
Yes mate i hope this will get out also it would be great to play this mod mate
yes i got Fall of rome as well the last version they fixed it up really great its a wonderfull mod. I got 7 modded MTW on my PC i love the game
Well i hope this will get out to play

[macsen rufus]

I hope it sees the light of day before another computer dies on me

I have got RTW + BI, but found it bit of a disappointment, and also I don't have the first clue on modding it (okay, so I didn't have a clue when I started on MTW either.... but wanting to get HTW BA working gave me a motive to learn.) Also, I have an NVIDIA video card, so need different drivers to play MTW and RTW. As it's such a pain to keep swapping over (I once left my machine with NO video output by uninstalling the wrong drivers ) so I've decided I'd rather have MTW + mods than RTW.

HTW was the first mod I ever tried, and I'll never forget that first battle, invading Messenia as the Lakadaemonians! It really knocked my socks off, seeing all those hi-res shields, javelins flying everywhere, and the battle maps are still some of the best I've seen. They'll be carried across into the Ancient mod when I work out how. I don't think it will be difficult, I just haven't looked into it yet. I think I'm going to have to make my own "hill fort" maps for western europe though

Latest news on Ancient-XL (my working title!):

- more Egyptian units added: Egyptian archers, Sherdan mercenaries (like Greek BA militia, but tougher), Medianite cameliers (from HTW) only available in Sinai and Arabia.
- proper Egyptian portraits for Pharaohs and princesses
- one "Famous king" added: Ramses II (charismatic leader)
- using HTW versions of nubian spears and guards, only available in Libya and Egypt
- building up a full Egyptian name list

Next faction to look at will be Assyrians, then Hittites.

I need to decide on a date for "iron age" technology to appear (maybe as a "high" period) but giving early access to the Hittites in Anatolia and Celts in Hungary / Halstatt homeland. I'm also making the pagan ("barbarian" tech-tree more drawn out so they have to do more developments in order to catch up with the "civilised" factions of the Middle East (not forgetting that early advantage in ironworking and maybe horse breeding )

[axel]

Wooow great mate if you got the change cane you show somme pics ???

[macsen rufus]

I've finally got ReadBIF again, so can do some more stuff like faction shields and review panel graphics....

[axel]

really nice mate really nice

[dimitrios the samian]

Brilliant stuff Macsen !! Winter will soon be coming here down under and when it sets in I'll look forward to helping you out on this one both in research & pic & portrait hunting & maybe even more ... ,, I just feel those battles in the sand will be fantastic without trees and shrubs in the way ,, This Bronze Age mod will be a first !! Perhaps eventually we can add Sumeria , Babylon & others for a "Dawn of Civilsation" add on campaign ? !! ,, Anyway my hard drive double very very soon so as soon as MTW + Hellenic is reloaded I'lll be in touch so you make sure I have all your little additions & extra's added to it ,, cheers for now ,, DTS ...
Axel ,, If I can't get to download FOR 3.1 before it disappears may I get a copy from you ? cheers 2u2

[cegorach]

Good work !

I can give you some (limited) help with the mod. There are many possibilities to explote with the mod, some are VERY easy to implement e.g. mounted infantry if you need it.

Maybe you should create a new thread right here within this sub-forum to develop the mod.

Some people could help you with the research which would be very useful in this modding project. Currently only some people notice the idea...

[macsen rufus]

Hi Cegorach - thanks for the kind words. I have to admit that some of your ideas from PMTW have already helped me! So far most of the "hard work" that's gone into this has been second-hand - VikingHorde's map, and the HTW team's units, so I can't claim a lot of credit, I'm just mixing up the toys in my toybox so they can play together

You're probably right about a new thread though -- but that would make it sort of "official", and I don't really want to make too many promises at this stage....

@DTS: I quite like the idea of a Mid-East focus, but that will require a whole new camp map. I'll keep looking to see if that MidEast map ever made it to the light of day. Can't remember where I saw it though....

And of course, the other project is continuing to get HTW-BA straightened out. One day I'll get to play the PM English Civil War scenario....

[dimitrios the samian]

Hello Cegorach & thanks for the encouragment >> Macsen , I'm fairly certain the map you saw was from the defunkt Diadochi mod being made ,, It was focused in that area of Persia at the time of Alexanders death ,, Perhaps there is some way of contacting this person who was creating this mod & even take all his peices to put into a new playbox !! ... Anyway guys should it be necessary Im sure we could easily make a map of Mesopotamia ... So Macsen keep chipping away on your Bronze Age project and lets see how it all develops ,, In the meantime I'll check out the library to see how maps are made ,, cheers for now ,, DTS

[cegorach]

Hi Cegorach - thanks for the kind words. I have to admit that some of your ideas from PMTW have already helped me! So far most of the "hard work" that's gone into this has been second-hand - VikingHorde's map, and the HTW team's units, so I can't claim a lot of credit, I'm just mixing up the toys in my toybox so they can play together

True, but it is exactly what I did some time ago lacking skills in drawing, with no support to think about - at least you don't need to do much to have almost perfect collection of animations for the mod - it made me want to see them personally to determine the possibilities.


I am interested in details how will you handle game unit vs. unit balance.

For example some time ago I wondered how to handle things like chariots in a mod requiring them ( I toyed with the idea of RTW on MTW VI mod - simila to the one already in progress).

Here are my thoughts.

Heavy chariot designed to break enemy line should :

1. Lose missile weaponry because the AI can't use it prperly, but not completelly - the 'dismounting' allows adding optional unit of heavy chariots WITH missile weaponry, but because it will be only available by 'dismounting' the recruitable heavy chariots the AI will not use them (because it doesn't dismount units before a battle anyway) and a human player will still be given this option.
The minor flaw is that this way the chariot crew will not dismount into anything else, but from historical point of wiev it didn't happen if I am not wrong.

2. Heavy chariots can be coded as INFANTRY
- it has numerous advantages.
One - this way it ignores anti-cavalry bonuses.
Two - it still can be dismounted and the existence of the steed doesn't matter too - infantry can have mounts as I found out.
Three - the existence of a steed STILL makes it terrible when fighting in forested areas.

3. It needs to get pavise shield - only this way they will not die too quickly from enemy missile fire. Pavise bonus can be very high making the target very hard to kill with ranged weaponry and unlike armour doesn't cause fatigue.
Of course they shouldn't be bullet proof, but it is a matter fo testing.
Just check my WagionInfantry in PMTW if you need something really hard to kill.

4. Fatigue can be controlled by the weight of armour. This way fast chariots with high stamina can get light armour (even none) with protection offered by well-balanced pavise shield.
Heavy chariots quite differently - heavy armour and weaker pavise keep it well protected from missiles, but faster to tire.

5. Defence offers protection not armour so chariots should be given decent defence at the expense of their armour.

6. FEAR is the most potent weaponry in the game ! Thanks to the incredibly flexible system of fear used by the MTW engine it is easy to determine which units fear what which is ESSENTIAL for the chariots to work properly.
Basically heavy chariots should cause fear in infantry except the ones which are designed to hunt them ( e.g. chariot runners).
Chariot hunters can not only be invulnerable to such terror, but cause fear in chariot units...
Because fear adds +2 to attack and lowers target's attack by 4 at the same time it is damn useful and allows creation of units designed to stop perticular enemies.

The AI also seems to use the fearsome units as designed which is even better.


Well... you might already know this all, but I had this idea - hopefully you might find something useful here.

You're probably right about a new thread though -- but that would make it sort of "official", and I don't really want to make too many promises at this stage....

The mod in general seems to be rather easy to produce - the main problem is research unless you have it done already.
The reduction of techtrees, many cuts here and there will shorten the time required to make it work too.
From my experience I can say that the research takes the largest part of work.

And of course, the other project is continuing to get HTW-BA straightened out. One day I'll get to play the PM English Civil War scenario....

There will be two'English' scenarios - Civil War and Armada Campaign.
The problem is the recent discoveries shattered my earlier plans and made me re-define the whole concept of the PMTW...
Currently I am doing some research to add new options to less attractive factions such as Montenegro - which means more time...
At least I managed to add a couple of new animations I managed to create.

[cegorach]

After a quick glance at the HTW animations and my Osprey ancient wars books I can say that almost everything which possibly can be used in the mod is already done...

Of courase in case you wanted to add more than the 'vanilla' factions you will need to move some dangerous animations folders to different places (those which cause CTDs when used by additional factions) which still is possible thanks to the fact there are 2 unused custom folders in HTW (those discovered by Barocca which I use in PMTW) it is much easier - besides most of those hoplite infantry has no use anyway.

Good luck !

If you have some specific questions where I can help I will be visiting this forum from time to time so will be able to help I believe.


BTW Are you going to use native names - in Egyptian, Assyrian etc ?

In many cases it is possible because sources do include such.



Regards Cegorach

[dimitrios the samian]

Cegorach your comments & ideas to Macsen have ignited my interest in this mod !! .. I have just read over half a dozen pages and my appetite is ready .. Macsen Im itching to play this mod ! partial & unfinished (( those screenies look soo nice )) If at all possible would you at some stage be able to send over a copy of Bronze Age with any other files so I can reload it over HTW & begin familiarising myself with it ( ) , As files for BA are now unavailable ,, Perhaps also Cegorach would also like the same files ,, I also noted that Pericles showed interest in BA by chiming in with comments on Sea-People ... (( He recently finished re-tweaking Fall Of Rome 3.1)) and maybe he is interested in helping out ? as he currently isn't involved in any Total War modifications .. What do you say Macsen ? When your ready & comfortable would you take the plunge and try a "Sub-forum" thread ? ... It's definately going to get more attention that way ,, As Cegorach said most of the hard-works been done ,, So generating interest leads to more people involved/interested then onto forming a team and perhaps one day soon release a mod as as big & popular as XL & Pike & Musket ,, DTS

[cegorach]

Modding team is the last thing he really needs (from my experience) especially with all those sweet animations from HTW.

I suggest looking for research support - this can make the work really easy.

Overall I would say the mod can be ready in time of 10-14 days if done at quick pace.

Researching unit rosters are always the most time consuming part.
It is about 2-3 days to add all units in the game, 1-2 days to balance them, 2-3 to write proper descriptions, 1 day to create techtrees, 2 days to set startpos and about 3 days for bug hunting.
Personally I don't believe in balancing the campaign - I usually have thrown realistic number of soldiers for each faction and let the game resolve the rest.
Funny I got opinions that PMTW is so well balanced after this intentionally careless approach.

[macsen rufus]

in time of 10-14 days

I should point out I don't have days, only evenings.... I'm also not keen on time pressure, this is a recreation, I get all the time pressure I need from work (as well as the opportunity to do some research when the boss is out of the office ) A lot of the research is in the modding guides as well - I want to change some of the shields and weapons in the animations, eventually -- keep bronze weapons looking bronze etc. I'm still a bit rusty, but getting back up to speed. I'll also try and be a bit more organised in my approach this time (including more back ups OFF my hard-drive!)

The way it works is that the original install is XL, with units ported over from HTW - I tried the other way round (ie start from HTW and add the XL map) but it wouldn't start properly. It's going to be great fun separating out what needs to be put into an installer later on, but that's a problem for another day. Meanwhile, the best thing is if you have both HTW and XL, you can make a fresh copy of XL, and I should be able to give a list of directories/files that need to be copied in from HTW, and then make a small patch which includes the files that I've changed so far. But that probably won't be just yet...

@DTS - the BA scenario in HTW should work, though a bit buggy, if you use the "Total Patch" which is still up on 3D.

BTW Are you going to use native names - in Egyptian, Assyrian etc ?

As much as possible - but it's never going to be exact transliterating into the Latin alphabet (one advantage you have with more recent eras!) I'm also trying to get historical kings in place - ie Ramses II, Muwatillis, etc etc

More next week

[macsen rufus]

In brief, it uses the Hellenic Bronze Age units on the XL whole Europe map to create a "Bronze Age Europe" scenario.

Start date is approx 1250-1275BC (ie just in time for Kadesh). The main area of interest is obviously the Middle East, as most of the rest of the map is pretty much uncivilised, although this is an era in which the Celts, Slavs, Balts, Germanics etc are become established. During the scenario, iron use will spread and revolutionise the relationship between the "barbarians" and the "civilised" factions. The age of chariots will be superceded as better horse breeding allows for riding as well as chariot-pulling.

Latest updates:

Egyptians in Battle - the sharp eyed will notice a new unit in the roster - Nubian archers! I found unused frames for this in the HTW "NegInf" animations - this unit has now made its way to the battlefield and works fine (though obviously not as good as Egyptian Archers )



Assyrian battle line



Assyrian unit stats



A couple of new units:

[axel]

really nice mate i am itching to play this mod mate

[dimitrios the samian]

Rufus ,, Good to see all these new screenies ! nice ... Im just as keen as you on this mod so keep plugging away till you get it nice Tight & balanced ,, Ok a few questions ,, Can I be your beta tester on this one ?
Also I would like to do any research for you including giving you all the nice pics I collected all those years ago for Komninos when he was working on it with the boys ,, (( I have nice Syrians - Hyksos - Sea Peoples + more )) that would be ideal for review panels / parchments etc etc if required ,, Imagine if a Mesopotamian map was made for this one ! wow !! cause if memory serves me correct their are factions already made by Flip which stretch beyond the XL map ,, Would also be nice if we could get period campap peices as well ..
** MODERATOR ** PLEASE if possible move this thread to the SUB-FORUM ...
cheerio for now ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

@Dimitrios - I'd like to see your stuff on the Sea Peoples & Syrians, please! The Hyksos, I'm afraid are already in the past at this point, as are the Mitanni.

One main focus is trying to get the chronology right - not easy when the sources disagree as to whether the Trojan War happened before or after Kadesh, for instance! Whilst we have a good date for Kadesh (1275 BC +/- 5 years), I've seen dates for the Trojan Wars everywhere from 1300 to 1180 BC. I'm trying to avoid names/factions/portraits that are more recent than the target period (eg found LOADS of stuff for Assyria, but all based around 600BC or thereabouts ), but I guess I'll have to fudge a few issues eventually!

I will also be doing recruitment on a "homeland" basis, though a few faction-specific units will be recruitable everywhere (eg Egyptian archers are just archers trained Egyptian style and with Egyptian bows and will be available anywhere, but Nubian Archers will ONLY be available in Libya and Egypt).

Some units will have a homeland and available to all factions in that homeland - I'm still undecided whether to make them culture-specific though - if the Celts took Arabia, would the cameliers fight for them or not, for instance?

I'd really like to make a Hebrew faction too (I've already given Palestine a valour-bonus for light slingers ) and I'd love the idea of producing wall-levelling trumpets at a siege engineer's workshop My first thoughts were to maybe dump "The Exodus" in Sinai, but it might be better to wait til approx 900BC and set up a proper Israelite kingdom in the "high" era. But then if I was to include Phoenicians we could be a bit short of provinces...

Western European factions are going to be harder, as we're really talking about distributed ethno-linguistic groups rather than any sort of organised nations at this stage. At the moment their unit roster is the most limited of all, especially the Germanics who never had chariots. I'm verging more towards having lots of rebels across western europe and keeping the factions in small homelands to start with (ie celts and slavs especially) to mimic the culture spreading with time (Halstatt and Lausitz, respectively). Also I'm not yet sure what to do about the non Indo-Europeans of western europe - Iberians and the Atlantic culture.

So far the most developed faction roster I have is the Egyptians and Assyrians:

EGYPT
Egyptian chariots (BG unit)
Nubian spears / Nubian archers / Nubian guards (Libya + Egypt only)
Light + heavy slingers (ALL FACTIONS, ALL PROVINCES)
Egyptian archers
Tower shield spearmen ("homeland" units for middle east - all factions)
Sherdan mercenaries
Medianite cameliers (Sinai + Arabia ony)
Eastern ("Syrian") archers ("homeland" units for middle east - all factions)
To add: Ne'arin (elite infantry) and light infantry (armed with maces)

ASSYRIA
Assyrian chariots (BG unit, valour bonus in Mesopotamia)
Light + heavy slingers (ALL FACTIONS, ALL PROVINCES)
Assyrian archers (Mesopotamia, Armenia, Edessa)
Tower shield spearmen ("homeland" units for middle east - all factions)
Eastern swordsmen ("homeland" units for middle east - limited factions)
Medianite cameliers (Sinai + Arabia ony)
Eastern ("Syrian") archers ("homeland" units for middle east - all factions)
Assyrian spearmen (Mesopotamia, Armenia, Edessa)
To add: possibly horse archers depending on research regarding dates - definitely by 900BC
Battering ram c. 600BC (first siege engineers were Assyrian)

I'm toying with the idea of making light slingers "dismountable" to heavy slingers (which have flaming missiles for wooden walls, and also AP missiles against troops - I've altered the ammo already so that light slingers have 100 (IIRC) as they can just use stones....)

[dimitrios the samian]

Ok Macsen ,, Send me your email and i will start sending you those pics ,, cheers for now

[macsen rufus]

I've been getting more to grips with unit animations, and last night spent some time in the barbarous lands of the north...

Added shield to tribal axemen
New unit: tribal spears, with shield and throwing spear (see pics below)
Changed shield on Assyrian spears

"Dismountable" slingers works fine, so now I have one trainable unit that can do both jobs.

[macsen rufus]

Ok Macsen ,, Send me your email and i will start sending you those pics ,, cheers for now

PM on its way

[dimitrios the samian]

Nice ones Macsen ! ... I only wish i could mod to ,,,, Looking forward to seeing more of your middle eastern units especially chariots & seige equipment (( Assyrian Rams )) ,, Are you planning on making /modifying the castles on the battlemap to suit the period ? I'll get those pics over to you on the weekend , gotta spend 3 days on the road ,, cheers for now ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

For the castles, I intend to import all the HTW maps - at the moment it still has the XL maps throughout -- which leaves the great situation of 200 club-wielding nutters trying to hammer down the doors of a full-blown mediaeval castle with ballista towers If all goes well I'd like to make some hillfort maps for the western european factions, as that will be mostly terrain rather than models involved, lots of ramps and ditches and stockades.

I know the whole map import thing will be quite a big job, as it will require me to go carefully through all the province info in the startpos file, make sure I have maps for all the terrain types etc. Yup, that's right, I'm procrastinating on that one More of a job for a weekend than an evening, I think.

Any new units will depend on what I can make from existing ones by moving shields and weapons around - but that still gives quite some scope. The pre-existing HTW RAM will be fine for the Assyrian one.

As for unit bifs, there are quite a few spares left yet - some of the animations will not be used in BA (oxivolos and eutythonon, for example) and some are duplicated - the bodies of the tribal warriors exist in two animations, so that means I can extract my slingers from the bif which has bronze weapons, and free up the other copy which has iron weapons.

It's going to be difficult to make the european barbarian factions distinct from each other - okay, so the Germanics have no chariots and their BG units are the axemen - but most of them will have the basic tribal warriors (clubs), archers, spears and axes, plus the slingers which everyone gets. So some faction-specific "specials" will be needed. I was thinking along the lines of small "berserker" type units, hunters that can hide in the open and have better bows, and possibly some sort of "noble" unit that can also be a chariot dismount. Javelin throwers also seem desirable. And in due course there will be swordsmen available, which can vary between factions (eg Celtic units with Naue swords, Germanics with longswords maybe....)

[Pericles]

macsen rufus:

Excellent work so far :)

You're progressing at a quick pace....

I also love playing ancient empire games such as HTW.

BTW, it would be great to see Babylon and Persia in the mod. Babylon especially fits the time period, and if you have Early, High, Late, periods, then perhaps Persia could be fit in.

Cheers!

[Pericles]

Lots of pictures about ancient Egypt you might find useful:

http://images.google.ca/images?q=anc...mages&ct=title

http://classroomclipart.com/cgi-bin/.../Ancient_Egypt

http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/explore/main.html

[macsen rufus]

Hi Pericles,

thanks for the links, I'll go and have a little snoop around shortly

It definitely sounds like we need a map for further east, seems there's a lot of interest in Babylonia! For now I think Assyria is the eastern limit with the XL map (at least it has Mesopotamia on it )

Slightly less progress last night, I got kind of caught up with playing the Germanics, and trying a couple of ideas. For the western barbarian factions I've added in three levels of livestock farming (Domesticated boars, Cattle herd, and Cattle Breeder) currently with "cathedral income" as I don't know yet if two sets of buildings with farm income will work, and depending on the other farm upgrades. In time this will extend into the rest of the tech tree, such as leatherworker (needed to make shields and harnesses etc), so the barbarians go through a longer tech-up process, and also to make up for not having the same sort of farmland as found in the fertile crescent. Farm levels and resources are yet to be tweaked, currently I have no resources or trade goods on the map, and farming is at default XL values. Genrally the economy overall will need a complete overhaul, as I have the very cheap HTW units and buildings on quite a high-income map, but for now, whilst I'm testing, quick and easy building is a useful tool...

I'm off to do some research, lunch break is nearly over