Accurate Towns In Rome Total War Mod Suggestion!!! [Archive]

Lonely Soldier

03-13-2005, 06:26

Hi all,

I just had a thought. Has anyone else noticed how none of the settlements in Rome: Total War are accurately recreated from historical evidence or texts?
I know I have! That is why I am suggesting that someone with the know-how and the spare time, could attempt to recreate some of the major cities of the ancient world as close to their original plans as possible. I am sick of seeing cities laid out on the same basic grid plan!

For example: the city of Carthage did in fact incorporate its port (a mighty structure which could dry dock 200 military ships and which also had an outer dock for merchant vessels, this could even be a Wonder!) into the city.
the city of Athens was built around the imposing fortified Acropolis. Rome was built on seven hills and Byzantium's wall systems were not breached until the Turks blew them down with cannon, some 1200 years after their cpnstruction!
It also seems ludicrous to me that cities are not built on high ground- as they always were when circumstance allowed- like Jerusalem. I would love to see a city worth taking purely for its defensive merits!!! Or even just for its picturesque location!!!!

Sorry for that rant but its something I would love to see implemented in the game! Perhaps anyone willing could incorporate with Rome: Total Realism? Also, though this is somewhat seperate, are the defences available to the European barbarians really accurate to their means? surely they could have dug ditches or erected walls of spikes or constructed some kind of bank around their towns??? And another thing: where are the MOATS??

Once again I got carried away. Anyway this mod could be very popular and add a lot to the game!

Over to you!

Lonely Soldier

Trajen the 1st

03-13-2005, 07:11

i Agree with you all the way! If only somone new how to model the buildings ive always felt a lack of true atmosphere in the towns of RTW, in other words. I didint feel like i was looking at a legit(sp?) city from the ancient world. They all looked the same!! :furious3: :furious3:

SwordsMaster

03-13-2005, 13:42

The problem is: The cities are 1 tile on the map. And as such MUST be represented in a unique battlefield. It is possible to alter the layouts of the capitals modifying the streets layout and such, and even add a few distinctive buildings for capitals, but the cities will still be represented by a single square on the map, and thus cant be shown in their full beauty.

Alternatively, what could be done is create a battlefield that would BE a city and thus having an urban warfare map, but then the "assault the walls" factor would be lost as armies would be placed straight "inside" the city.

I dont know if I explained well enough, but heh...

metatron

03-13-2005, 19:40

Constantinople's walls weren't started until the Romans seriously developed it after Constantine.

Marshal Murat

03-13-2005, 20:49

I couldn't agree more.
I would love to hold Jerusalem against a Selucid army, holding them down the hill.

I agree, that we should incorperate some form of historical basis.
Especially Carthage with its two harbors, Babylon with its hanging gardens, and otherwise. Heck I would enjoy just viewing the city.

Myrddraal

03-13-2005, 21:11

This could be done by implementing different town plans using custom maps...

SwordsMaster

03-14-2005, 02:30

This could be done by implementing different town plans using custom maps...

Correct, but apparently rivers or seas cannot be included unless you create an actual "water" model and put it on the map as you would do with a road. Which will lead to disastrous consequences as armies approaching from that side will start the battle literally walking on water Jesus Christ-like. Which raises a possible relation between Bible writing and videogaming that we won´t explore. ~:confused:

Lonely Soldier

03-14-2005, 06:52

Hello again!

In regards to my part in the mod I would be quite happy to do the research in terms of cities as they were in that era. Apart from this I can only offer suggestions and such towards the mod.

I just had a thought. Has anyone else thought that the lack of activity in cities (when viewed from the campaign menus) was really odd. I mean sure there are citizens wandering about, but I always thought it would be cool if there were sentries on the walls, people in the market place etc. Also, say if you were training archers, you could watch them practising at the Archery Range etc.

metatron - my bad

SwordsMaster - I've had some thoughts on this after reading your posts. Would it be possible to say have a town on four tiles and have the outer faces of the tiles walled? Hope I made myself clear!

Anyways, I'm off to research some of those major cities.

See Ya!

Lonely Soldier

03-14-2005, 07:21

This is a placeholder for maps and images of cities.

Jerusalem: http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/maps/jer/images/jer379/Jer379_a.jpg

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/ancient_jerusalem.jpg

Rome: http://myweb.lmu.edu/fjust/Rome/Platner-ancient_rome-96.jpg

http://myweb.lmu.edu/fjust/Rome/Platner-city-growth-96.jpg

Athens: http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/athens.htm

http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/athensim.htm

http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/acropol.htm

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/forvm/Articles/Maps/images/Map_Ancient_City_of_Athens.jpg

Carthage: http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/carthage-city-layout.htm

Syracuse: http://www.aya.yale.edu/yet/sicily05/brochure.pdf (not great but interesting!)

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:AnA7b31l06IJ:www.amherst-maps.com/aam/e_italy.htm+plan+of+ancient+syracuse&hl=en (Ancient Italy in general)

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:pRglChV4sZUJ:www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/syracuse.htm+ancient+syracuse&hl=en (good text reference)

http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~crorres/bbc_archive/MapSyracuse3D.jpg (Interesting!)

Alesia: (these are mostly based on the siege of Alesia) http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jean-francois.mangin/romains/images/alesia.jpg

http://www.cav-templarios.hpg.ig.com.br/Image67.gif

http://www.livius.org/a/battlefields/alesia/alesia4.jpg

http://www.livius.org/a/battlefields/alesia/alesia2.jpg

http://www.foto-reiseberichte.de/kelten/frankreich/alesia.jpg

Londinium: http://www.londonhotelreservation.com/images/Londinium.jpg

http://www.bskrommenhoek.nl/images/londinium.jpg

http://www.eastendtalking.org.uk/OurHistory/assets/Hist_images/londinium_sml.jpg

http://marikavel.org/londinium-sorrell2.jpg

http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/mediastore/007/000/007ZZZ000000001U00003000%5BSVC2%5D.JPG

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Group/73851

Thebes/Luxor: http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/images/map_images/thebes_and_vicinity.gif

http://www.uwm.edu/Course/egypt/eeee/thebesold.jpg

Antioch: http://www.antiqueprints.com/images/ae/D8351.JPG

Seleucia/Babylonia: http://www.bible-history.com/babylonia/rec_babylon_city.gif

Hatra: http://whc.unesco.org/news/images/hatra_irak.jpg (make of that what you will!)

General Carnage

03-14-2005, 08:13

Lonely Soldier

03-14-2005, 10:32

General Carnage - Which particular aspect?

Yet another post:

The main cities I will research early on are:

Athens
Rome
Syracuse
Carthage
Byzantium
Alesia
Seleucia
Memphis
Thebes
Alexandria
Olympia - Which would need to be added.
Jerusalem
Rhodes
Tarentum
And others if anyone can think of cities of note in the ancient world.

SwordsMaster

03-14-2005, 12:15

SwordsMaster - I've had some thoughts on this after reading your posts. Would it be possible to say have a town on four tiles and have the outer faces of the tiles walled? Hope I made myself clear!

Nope, 1 town=1 tile. thats it. Hence, any town has to fit in 1 battlefield map. Even Rome. I know thats kinda frustrating, but hey...

Reverend Joe

03-14-2005, 19:41

Lonely Soldier- if towns were on 4 tiles then an army would only be able to siege a quarter of the city at a time. With wierd, unpredictable effects on gameplay.

CA really did not think a lot of this game through- they must have been under serious pressure by Actvision.

Lonely Soldier

03-14-2005, 22:27

Swordmaster - so this 1 tile thing is hard-coded? Well might it still be possible to make a condensed form of a settlement? Or possibly use a plan of the city at its least developed stage - earliest available map of Rome etc. Also if you look at the websites I posted you will see that athens looks relatively small and that the plan of Rome in its less expanded forms may also fit onto one battle map. To this end does anyone know the dimensions of a tile/battlemap in miles/kilometres etc.

Simetrical

03-14-2005, 23:39

Well, I think the main problem here would be the implementation. We'd be happy to use your research, but we need someone to apply it. From what I understand, this is quite a tedious job, but I'm not entirely sure about that.

This could be done by implementing different town plans using custom maps...Has it been done successfully yet, or is this just in theory?

Correct, but apparently rivers or seas cannot be included unless you create an actual "water" model and put it on the map as you would do with a road. Which will lead to disastrous consequences as armies approaching from that side will start the battle literally walking on water Jesus Christ-like.You can't make the models impassable?

-Simetrical

SwordsMaster

03-15-2005, 01:45

Has it been done successfully yet, or is this just in theory?

It has been done.

You can't make the models impassible?

Havent actually tried that...

Well might it still be possible to make a condensed form of a settlement?

Sure. As long as the whole thing is in 1 battlefield you can do pretty much anything. The thing is, if you make the city too big, the assaulter will start too close to the walls, and thus get shot right from the beginning. Which is not a bad thing for the defender, but will definitely unbalance the game.

Myrddraal

03-15-2005, 09:34

Has it been done successfully yet, or is this just in theory?
I have successfully implemented a custom map onto the campaign map. I haven't tried with a settlement but I see no reason why it shouldn't so long as you place a settlement on the tile.

Rodion Romanovich

03-15-2005, 20:17

I think this sounds like a nice mod idea. However why so worried about only one map tile per settlement? It's a huge improvement even if you just build smaller versions of the real cities, anything in that direction is better than the standard cities they have now IMO. A question: will these modified cities also have buildings appear when you build them? For example in Athens, should parthenon be there even if you only have a shrine in the city? IMO the best way of implementing this mod would be to change what's in cities from start so that Athens for example starts with temple or large temple and so on.

I also wonder if it's possible when making Carthage to make that cool dry dock change as the port of the city is upgraded?

Lonely Soldier

03-16-2005, 05:46

Swordsmaster - I had another thought about the multiple tile settlements thing. Could you make a placeable (in the same way as a road) wall model and have it as an impassable campaign/battle map object, which would be developed as your settlements walls would be (obviously placing gatehouses where roads pass through etc.)? This is considering that roads change appearance as you upgrade them as do ports and settlements. This considered would it be possible to create several new campaign/battle map tiles which would appear as urban areas (using the models for the campaign and battle map settlements). You could then place the right shaped urban landscape tiles (which would be added as the settlement expanded) and develop your walls, road-like, around them (using the unwalled settlement model on the campaign map and designing the new tiles to fit into this)? Another benifit of this could be extra walls as at Jerusalem (around the royal precinct) etc. The main problem I can see in this is that the walls would have to change position in relation to the settlements expansion, and I'm not sure whether the walls/roads can be altered in terms of path "dynamically" per se.

LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix - I definately agree that any added realism is a huge improvement! But I am hesitant to give up on the multi-tile approach just yet. And regarding your other comments:

"A question: will these modified cities also have buildings appear when you build them? For example in Athens, should parthenon be there even if you only have a shrine in the city? IMO the best way of implementing this mod would be to change what's in cities from start so that Athens for example starts with temple or large temple and so on."

I agree with all you've said here and yes buildings will be added as you build them (unless the settlement has them at the start) just in the correct positions this time (see images of Athens layout - The Odeon, for example, when built, will appear in the position seen on these maps, or those that are most relevant anyway). Its just a matter of working out what should be there at the start! Which for the major cities (like Athens) shouldn't be too hard.

"I also wonder if it's possible when making Carthage to make that cool dry dock change as the port of the city is upgraded?"

Carthage may have its "uber-dock" from the start as the game begins after it was built. If we choose not to give Carthage the dock from the start it will most likely be an upgrade after Dockyard.

Please ask me to clarify if any of this is not clear!

Lastly, any modellers or other people with useful skills (who have nothing better to do!) please start applying whenever you wish!

SwordsMaster

03-16-2005, 10:04

Swordmaster - I had another thought about the multiple tile settlements thing. Could you make a placeable (in the same way as a road) wall model and have it as an impassable campaign/battle map object, which would be developed as your settlements walls would be (obviously placing gatehouses where roads pass through etc.)? This is considering that roads change appearance as you upgrade them as do ports and settlements.

You could do that, but then the walls would be undestructable.

This considered would it be possible to create several new campaign/battle map tiles which would appear as urban areas (using the models for the campaign and battle map settlements). You could then place the right shaped urban landscape tiles (which would be added as the settlement expanded) and develop your walls, road-like, around them (using the unwalled settlement model on the campaign map and designing the new tiles to fit into this)?

Let me see if I´m getting it right: You want to put several "cities" in the campmap, and make each represent a different part of the city, right?

I havent tried that, but it might be possible. I´m not sure if each city has to have a minimum distance from another city to be viable.

Then again, even if you managed to do that, you would have to develop each of the parts as a different city altogether which would be quite a mess.

It may be worth a try though

Lonely Soldier

03-16-2005, 10:25

Swordmaster - That's pretty much it regarding the urban areas. However they'd be more like the less dense kind of forests. For example armies can move in and out of them. The different urban tiles would not be settlements in their own right. The idea would be to have a cluster of these "urban tiles" surrounding an unwalled central town piece/tile (this would be the settlement that the player interacted with).

Also, pertaining to the indestructible walls: I agree this is a big issue! Thanks for pointing it out! Considering that campaign pieces can change their appearence (though not roads, I grant you), ports blockaded (but I don't think this has a battle map representation), volcanoes erupting etc. then theoretically you could have walls which could be destroyed and have another model for certain sections. Also, another dynamic effect on the campaign map which you may have nnoticed, is when an army is in a position for a long duration the ground around them becomes scorched, this could be another way to have walls destroyed (though I am now just clutching at straws).

On another matter - make sure to check back on my previous posts (particularly those on new models and settlement details!).

Anyway thanks for the continued interest Swordsmaster!

Lonely Soldier

03-17-2005, 23:42

This is a Placeholder for ideas on new structures etc.

There will probably be some new or altered models required. These MAY include:

Port of Carthage

Sea walls - as at Syracuse, Byzantium and others

Parthenon at Athens

Senate House at Rome

"Close-up" ship and port models - for when your soldiers are actually in a port or right on the coast etc.

Possible reskins of current buildings - Mainly Eastern factions, Carthage etc.

Walled cliffs - cliff faces which have been walled over and had battlements incorporated.

Possibly some new fortifications - mainly for barbarians may include:

Spike wall/ spikes set in ground/pits

Dry moats

Banks running up to walls

Multiple walls and terracing

This post will be periodically updated.

Simetrical

03-18-2005, 02:49

Was the port of Carthage particularly special?

-Simetrical

metatron

03-18-2005, 06:55

Was the port of Carthage particularly special?

-Simetrical:inquisitive:

Reverend Joe

03-18-2005, 20:52

This is turning out better than I thought... however, in order to bring this mod to full fruition, I personally believe you should try to merge with Europa Barbarorum. I'm sure they will have no objection- those guys are realism junkies.

Simetrical

03-18-2005, 23:08

As far as I know, EB is only willing to share its material once it's incorporated into a released version of EB. Not an unreasonable policy, necessarily, but needless to say, I do think that it would be better if you released your info freely to any mod or individual that wanted it.

-Simetrical

Lonely Soldier

03-19-2005, 00:38

Simetrical - Was the port of Carthage particularly special?
Please check the links to Carthage in my image placeholder post, then you will see what I mean!

The primary goal for this mod is to recreate as many of the cities in the original campaign as possible (how many we can do is mainly dependant on available sources). To achieve this the mod will also eventually produce a new system under which settlements and their growth will function. This is the aspect which will be made available to other mod teams - they will probably just need to implement our code etc. and replace the original models with those suitable for their mod.

meatwad - As you will have read above, ideally we want to help (and be helped by) as many mod teams as are willing. That is why I am hesitant to incorporate with one team over (and to the exclusion of) another - we're going to need all the help we can get! thanks for the positive comments though!

Simetrical

03-21-2005, 02:17

Unfortunately, I just saw a post by eadingas saying that it will be impractical to implement these designs, since the method used to assign a settlement a given map can't allow the settlement to grow or change. I don't personally know if this is true, however. What does descr_settlement_plan.txt do?

-Simetrical

Lonely Soldier

03-21-2005, 06:45

Simetrical - I don't know if your comment was addressed to me, but if it was I suggest that you read the rest of the thread - to save you the trouble: I am only contributing research and the concept. I have no idea what the descr_settlement_plan.txt does. And where did you see this information claiming that the mod is unfeasible? Earlier in the thread at least two relatively experienced modders said that, with some changes, the mod could be implemented. One more thing: what is your role in the RTR team?

Also, to anyone reading this: Is anyone willing to help (or who knows anyone who may be interested in helping) on the technical side (this is not to dismiss the advice so kindly given - particularly by Swordsmaster and Myrddraal) who is not already commited to another team?

We really need to get interested people into the mod in a practical capacity!

Epistolary Richard

03-21-2005, 12:07

The conversation on the mechanics is happening on Putting features on the Campiagn map (custom tiles) (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=43149) (sic).
The resurrection of which, by the way, we're all grateful for.

eadingas didn't say it was unfeasible. It appears that customised cities can be implemented, however as they are a customised tile they lose their relationship to the strategic version of the city. So that if you build a temple on the strat map it won't appear on the battle map.

At this point it appears to be a trade-off, do you want your cities to be customised or do you want them to be generic but properly reflect the buildings built on the strat map.

I would imagine the best course of action would be a compromise. Generic, organic cities for most, customised cities for the more important, unique locations. Even people who wanted to keep their vanilla cities in the stratgeic would be interested in a custom tile of an ancient city (or even a section of one) as it could be used for new historical/custom battles.

A different problem, though, would be how to implement the siege rules (victory by holding the central plaza, defending units rout there and auto-rally) for the custom cities.

Myrddraal

03-21-2005, 13:51

Eadingas hasn't actually tested it I believe. It would be interesting to see if the city does get upgraded on the map if you place it as the city type in battle...

eadingas

03-21-2005, 15:01

Using custom plan sets you can do following things to the city map (every city map):
- change height of the base (hills, valleys, ditches, earthen embankments, etc.), and textures of the ground (out of several given ground types)
- modify street plans , walls, buildings and environment (with certain restrictions - walls must form a closed polygon with four gates on four sides, for example)
As long as you don't need to add anything else (like, a river or a sea cliff), you don't need to use battle editor. The city will also grow and upgrade as normal (you need to provide a city model for every city level, though)

I tried to start a settlement plan editor project at TWC, but none of the programmers there has time for it. It would be a project open to all modders, of course, not just EB members. Anyone willing to give it a try with me? I know what to do, but I don't know how... this would be a great help for all full conversion mods out there.

The idea with water as structure is actually quite a good one... though since you can't add animation to buildings (or can you?), it will look kinda weird.

I have the "test settlements in battle editor" on my to-do list, but the list is a rather long one :) so if anyone manages to test it before that, please do.

The minimum distance between cities is at least two tiles, since a city can't be adjacent to a province border. It might be more.

Sorry if some of this has been already said, just noticed this thread and didn't yet have time to read it through.

Lonely Soldier

03-22-2005, 06:34

eadingas - this is all very interesting (and seemingly good) news! Does this ability to edit cities (heights etc.) extend to making a city of multiple tiles? If you check some of my earlier posts (regarding multi-tile suggestions) you will see the main stuff I had in mind.

Epistolary Richard - Thanks for the link!

eadingas

03-22-2005, 09:15

Nope, and I would avoid anything of the sort, unless you're doing a very specific mod. For example, ME:TW guys could afford doing campaign city models that were larger than one tile because all their cities stay the same and never expand, so they have full control over what is where. But if you get a city model larger than one tile on regular map, coastal cities will get half-submerged in water, and it will look like Venice on a rainy day :) And before you ask, no, you can't get city-specific campaign map models...
As I said, minimum distance between two cities is at least two tiles, if not more.

Lonely Soldier

03-22-2005, 09:28

Myrddraal

03-22-2005, 09:36

Well on the campaign map, the minimum distance is two tiles as you can't have a city on a border...

SwordsMaster

03-22-2005, 13:21

eadingas - Swordsmaster seemed to think it may be possible, but how much of this he guessed is unclear. Have you read the earlier posts? Post No.s 19, 20 and 21 are the main posts regarding the multi-tile concepts.

I said I never tried, and that I wasnt sure if the cities had to have a minimum distance. Apparently you cant have more than one city per province, and if you cant have them closer than 2 tiles apart, then thats it.

What you could do although it would require an impressive amount of work, is have a "city" (as it is now, 1 tile) representing the city center, and then the 9 tiles around it representing the "urban area" you would create with the battlemap editor, and represent on a campaign map substituting dense forest tiles for village.

You could probably reuse some of the work from one city to another, but You would still need a few dozen different maps.

This is all just theory and brainstorming of course, but I dont see any reason why it shouldn't be possible.

:bow:

SigniferOne

03-22-2005, 16:42

eadingas, would it be possible to change the height within the city (ie. to imitate Rome's seven hills for example)?

eadingas

03-22-2005, 16:45

Yes. Just remember that you can't put buildings on slopes, there must be flat surface on top of the hill to put a building there.
BTW, check out Myrdraal's custom tiles thread for interesting news.

Myrddraal

03-22-2005, 22:55

Hm, doesn't the whole city flatten it out....

eadingas

03-22-2005, 23:09

Not if you edit underlay. Look at any barbarian city, what do you see in the middle? A hill.

Myrddraal

03-22-2005, 23:19

oh yeah, but you can't make custom hills in the battle editor?

eadingas

03-22-2005, 23:26

oh yeah, but you can't make custom hills in the battle editor?

Not if they are in the city.
These are, I guess, two stages of making a successful city map: first, edit everything around the city in battle editor, second, edit the city itself using manual methods or, if we ever have it, the settlement editor.
Everything outside borders of the city (marked by underlay, I suppose, or by borders model, they're pretty much the same) has to be edited by battle editor. Everything inside has to be edited manually.

SigniferOne

03-23-2005, 02:23

Pardon my ignorance here, but what is this "underlay" you guys keep talking about?

Lonely Soldier

03-23-2005, 04:54

What you could do although it would require an impressive amount of work, is have a "city" (as it is now, 1 tile) representing the city center, and then the 9 tiles around it representing the "urban area" you would create with the battlemap editor, and represent on a campaign map substituting dense forest tiles for village.

You could probably reuse some of the work from one city to another, but You would still need a few dozen different maps.

This is all just theory and brainstorming of course, but I dont see any reason why it shouldn't be possible.

Swordsmaster - Thats exactly what I had in mind. Many ancient cities had their important buildings located around their central point, so doing this could be quite applicable!

SigniferOne

03-23-2005, 05:25

Nahh I don't think that idea is practicable. That way a besieger somehow gets automatic access to the core of the "city", and the siege battle really starts inside, with you besieging the final citadel. You will not be able to start outside of the city and storm the outer walls, but already inside it. I don't think this really justifies the cyclopean effort that will go into making those 9 surrounding tiles. I am really excited and interested in implement the 1 tile city idea, and will offer my help and contribution to the project.

Lonely Soldier

03-23-2005, 09:50

dsyrow1 - thanks for the offer!!! Many of the cities will probably only be one tile anyway. If you refer to some of the maps on my image placeholder post you will see what I mean. So you could possibly help with these single tile settlements while others work on the multi tile options. Also, if you check some of the earlier posts, you will see what we had in mind for the wall issue.

To anyone interested - Do any of you know the dimensions of a single campaign tile or battle map? This information would be useful in determining which cities needed the multiple tile treatment. We may in fact find from this that too few cities would need it to be bothered with.

Rodion Romanovich

03-23-2005, 10:21

Hi, I'm starting a new mod and I'd like to cooperate with your mod if you're interested. The new mod is described here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=45319
You'll of course get all the credits for the accurate towns part. If you're interested, please post a reply in that thread.

Lonely Soldier

03-23-2005, 10:31

Thanks for the offer Legio! I have answered in the affirmitive on your thread! Of course this will remain the thread for the Accurate Towns project - but I am happy to discuss with Legio on his thread if he wishes! And everyone, please try not to clog his thread with discussion of this mod!

dclare4

03-23-2005, 11:27

Hi there Lonely Soldier,

I was wondering about this too for the mods I'm working with - WASP and ZTW. Particularly for WASP where I want to have cities like London, Paris, Berlin/Potsdam, Vienna, etc. - like the Londinium map in the custom battles, why can't we fight THERE when we fight in London in the campaign game?

There's supposedly a way to do this but it's really complicated or something. I think it was on another tw forum.

Comte de Clare

Myrddraal

03-23-2005, 11:40

Well Dclare, thats what weve been discussing. It was at this forum, in the general forum. Its sticked at the top of the page "Putting features on the Campiagn map (custom tiles)". Its something I worked out using obselete files in the prologue.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=43149

Lonely Soldier

03-23-2005, 12:08

Myrddraal - Very interesting! Especially the ports etc.! Hopefully useful for us!

eadingas

03-23-2005, 13:49

Possible suggestion for putting water-like thing inside the city:
There is ground_types tga map for every settlement plan. This is responsible for putting certain textures and ground types on the city map. I'm not sure where the textures are stored for these ground types, or which colors respond to which ground types (this needs to be researched), but it may be possible to use one of the colors for a "watery" texture and put good looking water on the map.
To make it impassable, you have to edit pathfinding model. This is a map of paths that units can follow in the city, and if you put the water outside these paths, units won't be allowed to enter it.
This won't work well for rivers (as pathfinding model only affects things within city) but it should be possible to add moats, ponds, small lakes etc. this way...

SigniferOne

03-23-2005, 17:49

Why can't we just lower the ground level, i.e. make a very deep ditch, into which the game itself fills water in, as it happens in the Battle Editor? Or make a shallow ditch, but raise the water level.

And also, no one still explained what the "underlay" was that eadingas mentioned some posts above.

eadingas

03-23-2005, 17:55

Is this really what happens in battle editor? I tried that, but it didn't work for me...

Simetrical

03-24-2005, 04:35

To anyone interested - Do any of you know the dimensions of a single campaign tile or battle map?A single campaign map tile is 24-30 km (15-20 mi), while a battle map is 2 km (1.2 mi) square, with 1 km (0.6 mi) squared playable for normal battles and something like 1.5-1.7 km (0.9-1 mi) squared playable in city assaults. As you can see, there's a pretty dramatic discrepancy.

-Simetrical

Lonely Soldier

03-24-2005, 06:28

Simetrical - Thanks for this. With this in mind we may find that many of the cities are in fact small enough not to have to use multiple tiles for! This doesn't mean that we give up on the multiple tile system though!!

Lonely Soldier

04-09-2005, 07:39

This mod seems to have died :bigcry: .

But now I have a new project:

The Age of Mankind: Total War

SigniferOne

04-09-2005, 19:42

Not at all, I have begun a very very long term project of recreating historical Rome, with hills and all. Other people should pick up other big projects, Athens, Syracuse, Carthage, etc. We don't have to be able to add new buildings to do this, we can just be able to edit old ones.

Come to think of it, maybe I'll do Athens first, for it will be the easiest.

shifty157

04-09-2005, 22:04

You should put the city center on top of the acropolis. Thatd be so cool and add that much more strategy and difficulty.

Lonely Soldier

04-10-2005, 03:50

Wow ~:) !! That's excellent news dsyrow1!

SigniferOne

04-10-2005, 07:28

Wow ~:) !! That's excellent news dsyrow1!
I will do my best, and it will be hard work and a lot of it.

Update:

Can you guess what this is?
http://img179.echo.cx/img179/4998/hills2sb.th.jpg (http://img179.echo.cx/my.php?image=hills2sb.jpg)

Lonely Soldier

04-11-2005, 06:54

I'm guessing Rome. The Tiber was a give-away ~;) . Thanks for showing interest!

Lonely Soldier

04-21-2005, 07:16

This thread is interesting regarding city plans in the game: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=19642&st=0

Hopefully they can find someone to make a graphical editor - until then the amount of work would probably be too much to bother with...

SigniferOne

05-01-2005, 07:31

The fruits of my long labor have finally paid off:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=47069

Lonely Soldier

05-01-2005, 23:45

dsyrow1 - That's some incredible progress!

Lonely Soldier

05-16-2005, 08:13

This thread was originally started as a mod in its own right, but as the techniques are being developed seperately (and on a lot of other forums and threads) this thread has become redundant. Unless those people developing these new editing techniques wish to make this their central thread for specific projects then the thread may as well be moved or closed.

Ilsamir Lord

11-30-2005, 11:59

Is there any movement on this matter in the game? Or has it been found to be too difficult? I'd really like to see a proper (even if scaled down) version of Carthage for example.

Afonso I of Portugal

12-08-2005, 18:18

A few more city plans if you wish to consider them:

Augusta Emerita (Capital of Lusitania instead of Scalabis or Salamantica, minor cities compared to Emerita):
https://img347.imageshack.us/img347/4157/emeritaaugusta2ps.th.png (https://img347.imageshack.us/my.php?image=emeritaaugusta2ps.png)

https://img347.imageshack.us/img347/6374/meridamodel6ew.th.jpg (https://img347.imageshack.us/my.php?image=meridamodel6ew.jpg)

Tarraco (Capital of Tarraconensis):
https://img347.imageshack.us/img347/830/tarraco8xt.th.jpg (https://img347.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tarraco8xt.jpg)

Corduba (Capital of Baetica):
https://img347.imageshack.us/img347/7900/romancorduba8xw.th.jpg (https://img347.imageshack.us/my.php?image=romancorduba8xw.jpg)