Arthur : Total War

[NagatsukaShumi]

Arthur - Total War
The Age of Legends

King Arthur is one of the most celebrated King's of British or World history and is famous across the globe for his acts of chivalry and his war against the Saxon hordes. His legend is full of great deeds and characters, Lancelot the great Knight and the man who stole Guinevere's heart from his King, the Round Table which seated the great knights of Arthur's court, Excalibur the sword of legend given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake and Merlin the great wizard of Arthurian Britain.

Roman Modifications

After the collapse of Centurion-Total War I have decided to take up work on a project concerning a subject I both enjoy and would love to play in Total War format, whats more its much smaller in scale and far more manageable than CTW ever was. As I have stated in the CTW post the Empires MOD has superceded my project and I have full faith in that team's ability to deliver a Roman MOD to the community, I also suggest looking at maximus decimus meridius' Fall of Rome MOD as I highly recommend it.

Schedule

July 23rd to July 30th - No work due to week long absence
July 31st to August 2nd - Implementation of factions to the campaign map, heroes added, addition of several units mostly for the Votadini (Arthur's Realm), first release of screenshots
August 3rd to August 6th - No work due to holiday and the purchase of a new PC
August 7th - Transfer of Arthur files to new computer from old computer, more unit additions
August 8th to August 12th - Addition of remaining units, addition of basic buildings
August 13th to August 16th - Addition of special buildings
August 17th to August 22nd - Campaign and Battle balancing
August 23rd to August 30th - Release of first beta during this time, resolution of any problems and fine tuning of units and campaigns
September onwards - Depends on the date of the release of Rome : Total War, possible conversion of Arthur mod to RTW if time doesn't allow and even more improved version for MTW:VI

MOD Information

This will be filled in when Units, Faction and Buildings and so on are confirmed, also, you'll find screenshots here.

[ShadesPanther]

YAY

Well at least you wont have to change too much of the units. Yu have a good lot of the celtic forces done I hope?

[NagatsukaShumi]

This is the advantage ShadesPanther, the problem with CTW was too many changes neded to be made to units and alone it was too hard, I would never have felt comfortable releasing a Roman MOD with Gothic Knights walking about the battlefield.

Any questions anybody has please take the opportunity to ask them now otherwise a week long wait for an answer will begin, please look at the scheduale if you feel their are a lack of updates as the reasoning will be on there.

Thanks for posting ShadesPanther, and yes the celtic factions are mostly semi-confirmed.

[PseRamesses]

NagatsukaShumi,
Sorry to see you´re scrapping Centurion since I´ve longed to play it. Good luck with this new mod, it really sounds interesting.
What´s the time-frame of the game? How large will the general play-area be? Is it soley focused on Arthurs world and its perimiters, or?

[NagatsukaShumi]

Hi PseRamesses

Thank you, it is sad to see CTW go, but in the end the workload got ontop of me and I had no others to help push it back up again, but there are some great Rome MODs out there so hopefully people won't feel too downhearted and thank you for the praise of ATW.

Well, it will just be Britain and the main focus is to get a Arthur campaign out which focuses on his time, but, I do plan to add more historical campaigns in the times before and after Arthur as the Arthur campaign will have alot of the myth in there as well as the reality. Possibly I'll add some of France at some point, but for now the foces is Britain and the Dark Ages there.

Nag

PS-I will occassionaly log on to check the thread, so I can answer questions, however, I'm too busy to do mod work this week, but I will try and come on to answer questions people have.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (NagatsukaShumi @ July 24 2004,05:43)]Well, it will just be Britain and the main focus is to get a Arthur campaign out which focuses on his time, but, I do plan to add more historical campaigns in the times before and after Arthur as the Arthur campaign will have alot of the myth in there as well as the reality. Possibly I'll add some of France at some point, but for now the foces is Britain and the Dark Ages there.
What time period of the dark ages do you refer to? 500-800Ad or what? I´m sorry for not knowing whane Arthur supposedly should have lived, according to legends. The reason for asking is simply that I see a possible joint-venture between your mod and FotN regarding the Brittish Isles, no need to do the same research twice, right?
FotN will probably stretch from 750-1050Ad but much research has been done down to 500Ad and even lower. Lately our crew has been joined by a young enthuisiastic guy called Aethelred who lives in England and is very interested in research and modding. Maybee we can exchange materials and research. Athelred might even help you out if he has the time and are willing. I think your mod-idea is close to his preferences. PM or mail me at pse@brevet.se if you also agree that benefits from a collaboration could be acheived.

[ah_dut]

sounds brilliant mate i'll wait for it to come, out. ( you will release it won't you?)

[NagatsukaShumi]

PseRamesses check your inbox.

ah_dut yes I will release it, its already proving far easier because the scale of it compared to CTW is drastically lower and more managable for me to handle, I will try my best to get it out in the timeframe specified but if not August hopefully very early September before I'm back at college, luckily I have the summer to work on this.

[Admin]

Posted: Aug. 03 2004,02:33
NagatsukaShumi

As the old thread isn't accessible at the moment I figured I'd post a little bit more about the MOD, including the current factions and a few special features.

Also note, ATW and FoTN have "teamed" up so to speak and will now be exchanging information and the like between one another. This collaboration is excellent news and I hope this can benefit both our projects.


Kingdoms

The Britons
The Kingdom of Dumnonia (Cerniu, Defnas and Sumorsaete)
The Kingdom of Dyfed (Defet)
The Votadini (Guined)
The Kingdom of Gwent (Guent)
The Kingdom of Powys (Pouis)

The Invaders
The Angles (Lindissi, Dere and Mierce)
The Saxons (Dornsaete, West Saexe, Suth Saexe and Cantware)
The Jutes

The Scots
The Scotti (Sci)
The Picts (Fib, Athfolta, Monoth, Moray and Cait)
The Damnonii (Dal Riada and Cyil)
The Kingdom of Lothian (Lothene and Reget)


Special Features

Female Troops
After watching the Arthur film and seeing the final battle I got the idea to include some female warriors into the game. Keira Knightley actually has her breasts flattened by two tight peices of leather and from a distance you can't really tell shes a woman until obviously the closer shots, basically she's dressed to make herself look male. I noticed quite a few of these warrior women and decided it'd be pretty unique to put them into Arthur, whether they are historically accurate or not doesn't really bother me, the whole point to Arthur is to let me be creative with the story, so the women are in. I do have a good idea of how to make their unit have specific protraits for leaders so I don't get warrior women with rather scary beards. Their unit graphics to begin with, sadly, will merely be topless loons, and yes I do realise they have beards, but hopefully somebody will be kind enough to offer unit graphics help, or I'll have to learn myself.

Merlin?
Yes Merlin will be in Arthur, in a way. Merlin himself will be a general rather than a specific unit called Merlin, but the unit he controls will be a "wizard". As I type I haven't figured out a name for the unit, but I don't want it to be wizard, something which sounds alot better. Basically they'll be Naptha Throwers, blowing up enemies with "magic" fireballs, they'll have greater range than Naptha Throwers but will take a while to "re-load" their magic. Again they'll be topless loons for now, but hopefully new animations would mean they don't throw the naptha's but do some sort of ritual move with their arms to makes the explosions, so it looks like "magic".

King Arthur and his Knights
It would be rather daft to title the MOD Arthur and not include Arthur himself, or his famous Knights. The unit is most likely to be the royal unit for the Arthurian faction (Votadini) and will be called something along the lines of "Knights of the Round Table". They will be the best cavalry and, when dismounted, the most skilled infantry in the game, however they are smaller in number then almost every unit in the game to compensate for their greater power, I wouldn't want to create a uber unit which is unbeatable unless you devote your whole army against them. They will however be very powerful and a useful tool when fighting in battle, especially for breaking enemy formations.

Ambushes
I experimented heavily with this technique earlier in the year and have made some nice and interesting discoveries in doing so. Ambushing your foe will be far more sneaky and deadly then it is in MTW. In MTW you always discovered the ambushes far too easily and I want to make ambushes far more battle turning then it is currently. I've found new techniques on the map maker along with editting graphics that makes hiding your units alot easier and will certainly make you think twice about advancing towards your enemy past some parts of the map where a hidden death maybe waiting for your very arrival. Hopefully this will spice up the game, especially on multiplayer and one thing you will notice has disappeared is the flag that are on every unit. Basically, this is required to make ambushes more effective and hiding the same. I also don't believe battle standards should even be in the game, each unit would need a different one for them to have any realism depending on their leader so theres another reason I've decided to drop them. The major reason though is to help you hide units on my "new" maps I will be including, you'll see examples of the features when I post some screenshots.

[Admin]

ed: Aug. 03 2004,14:30
thrashaholic

Hi NagatsukaShumi,

I've been helping the FOTN mod with some of their research with the British Isles, if you want any assistance feel free to drop me an email. michael_rhys_marsh@hotmail.com I've been doing quite a bit of research into the Britons and have found a number of native Celtic names for the provinces as opposed to the ones in VI, for example:

Isle of Man : Mannin
Cornwall : Kernow
'Guined' : Gwynedd

I've also found a few in Ireland if you're including it, and I've found a large number of native Briton names, which I have posted in the FOTN thread.

I hope this little taster has helped :)

[NagatsukaShumi]

Just a quick post to point out that I'm finally back up and running, the process of file transfer from my old to new PC has been more of a labourous task than I had wished for!

Anyway, I'll be making the usual back-up folder for MTW:VI today and be getting to work, thanks to Thrasholic the province names can be finished very quickly today, a few factions can be placed also, mostly the ones I've had confirmed for me in the list I believe I posted above.

I'll try and get a few screenshots out to show you the little ambush tricks I've found out either today or tommorrow depending on whether I have time to deviate from the actual modding itself. Tuesday night I won't be doing anything as I'll be away watching the depressing spectacle of York City but hopefully I'll get some more done come Wednesday.

Regards
Nag

[oldnfaded]

Hi
I am new to the lists and unable to start new threads. Although new to MTW I believe I am already a long way down the modding road. My achievements to date are workable map making both manually and using LMM. Succesful script files relative to those maps (manually so I understand whats happening heheh) . Adding factions, adding pagan agents, making new units and a little bit of work with unit grap1hics and changing weapons and shields on existing animations. . Ive not been to great on the unit graphics because I am a cr*p artist rather than inept programmer .. heheh

My reasons for joining this thread is that I have all but completed an Arthurian mod and cannot post it as a new thread because I am not authorised???. Since Arthur has so little confirmable historic fact, I have decided to base it on popular fiction. I particularly enjoyed Bernard Cornwells trilogy and interpretation of the legends, particularly considering its historical basis. So thats where I placed my mod.
The start date Is 495 AD cos this seemed as good as any. The map is as per VI but with redrawn and renamed regions. (This is completely different to VI)The British Factions are Dumnonia(led by Arthur), Gwent, Powys and the northern Kingdoms. The invaders are the irish, Scots, picts , saxons and Jutes. Both the jutes and saxons have a european base in Denmark, Jutland, Frankonia and neustria while Arthur has a european base and source of heavy cavalry in Armorica (Incorrectly symbolised by the Cottentin peninsula.) The saxons jutes and powys are pagan while the rest are catholic.
I have borrowed heavily on artwork and the efforts of other members of this forum to enhance the mod but have made some major graphical changes myself to produce more "historically better looking" units and agents. The mod IS PLAYABLE right now. It appears to run without CTDs and gives a satisfying game. The economies begin fairly developed as the Roman infrastructure is still working in Britain at this time. I have most of the kings and heroes working but there is still work necassary on some factions.
The armies are basically saxon dross infantry armies while the Britons are low grade late Roman armies with factional specialites. ie Dumnonian cavalry, Powysian auxilia palatinate and gwents regular pedyts. Battles are bloody as the forces are reasonably balanced. Production time for the specialist units is MAJORLY LONG (2 to 6 years). Defeats are therefore cataclysmic in terms of recovery periods and production of the specialist units is restricted to certain areas.

OK heres the crunch. I want to post this mod for general testing but I am currently unhappy with the aesthetic appearance of some of the 3Dtroops. In particular I would like a generic late roman infantry type, usable as javelinman, bowman , auxilia as per the Doura paintings. (BTW this is my main objection to the fall of Rome mod. It plays great but the troops are 2nd century not late Roman.) So before I post this mod, does anyone just happen to have prepared 3D late roman graphics or is there a gullible mug out there who would like to try their hand. I can supply artwork with dress details. Also if someone could post this as a new thread to keep it alive I would be very grateful.

Oldnfaded
(veteran wargamer in all senses of the phrase)

[dimitrios the samian]

Nagatsuka hows is your mod progressing ? ~:)

[NagatsukaShumi]

Hi Dimitrios

The MOD is progressing OK, at the current moment in time both myself and Thrasholic of the FOTN MOD are looking at factions, units and the rest of the research side so as to get all that out of the way at the start rather than having to stop every so often to catch up on some well needed information.

I was a bit over-ambitious in presuming I'd have screenshots, expecially seen as I've only added factions to regions which can't even be confirmed yet, however when theres something worth putting up I'll put it up.

To oldnfaded, I suggest you PM one of the moderators and I'm sure they'll gladly open a topic up for your MOD.

Rome is quickly marching upon us and I don't know as yet how that'll effect the MOD, we shall see when it gets here.

Regards,
Nag

[tiofio]

I hope u will do a mod on the King Arthur Age.
I want only to tell u, if u do it remeber that germans (anglosaxons and jutes ) had not any cavalry units and archers.
I know in vicking invasion they have but that is wrong. They never used cavalry unit and archers. Archers and cavalry are used in England only since the conquest of William the conquestor(1066). While scots had also carriots units untill the V century. Bye.

[tiofio]

Is this mod dead????

[dimitrios the samian]

Bin ded for a long time ....hahaha ....