Rise of Persia - Beta Released!

[Nero]

Rise of Persia beta release - RTW 1.5 version

Hello people, we have finally converted our Public Beta to RTW 1.5 and finished polishing it for release. Basically, it's the same as the 1.2 version we had before, but with lots of improvements. For instance, we're using sprites now, and have packed all textures, for better performance. Also, the cultures for factions are now correct. No more Roman factions! All factions have their own unique set of victory conditions now too, each based on their historical achievements, or neighbouring factions. For instance, Persia needs to conquer 60 regions, including the Babylonian, Lydian, Kemetic, Median and Macedonian capital cities. We got permission to use EB's animations as well, so no more silly vanilla animations anymore!
Also, the campaign map has been overhauled with more than fifty new regions in Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Thrace, Scythia and northern Africa.

Of course, this beta is far from complete. But personally, I prefer calling it a Demo version. The big release we have planned for in a few months, will feature lots more playable factions. This includes Babylon, Lydia and Media, to finish the most important factions. Persia and Kemet will get an overhaul, Skythia and the Massagetes will also get units, as well as Macedon and the Thracian faction. Also, I will heavily modify the buildings, so we've got a nice recruitment system suiting our time, and I'll implement religious buildings for all factions, maybe together with the BI feature religions, which I've been testing lately. We will keep you updated with previews as much as we can in the months to come, and will of course release patches for this beta if and when it is necessary.

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Install Instructions

-Make sure you've got a clean installation of RTW 1.5. No mods whatsoever applied.
-Download the beta from riseofpersia.com (http://www.riseofpersia.com/downloads/?id=1) (outdated - link redirects to ROP 2.1)
-Install ROP21Setup.exe to the root directory of your RTW installation

Thanks to:
Marcvs Traianvs (http://forums.medievaltw.com/Marcvs-m1.html), profithost.net (http://www.profithost.net/)and medievalTW.com (http://stratcommandcenter.com/chivalry/pages/www.medievaltw.com)

Note: Herkus has tested if this mod works with JSGME (http://www.twcenter.net/downloads/db/?mod=687), and this was a success. This is recommended for users who don't want to use 3 GB of their harddrive for every mod.

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Here are some screenshots of the demo/beta. The first slideshow shows the use of the overhand spearmen animations by some of our Greek troops. The second one shows recent changes to our campaign map.

http://www.riseofpersia.com/images/screenshots/battle/screenies.gif

http://www.riseofpersia.com/images/screenshots/map/stratmap.gif


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The Team:

Nero666 - Team leader, lead coder, tester, mapper, saviour
Rez - Lead Historian, Texts, tester
Goscinio - Lead graphics artist (2D and 3D), tester
FliegerAD - All round Historian, tester, otherwise known as superhistorian
Zenith Darksea - High quality Greek historian
Spurius - Jack of all trades
Celtic Man - Head of Music
Kallikratis - 2D/3D Artist
Kaweh K - 2D Artist

Special thanks:
CA - for making the wonder that is RTW
Faeghi - Creator of Rise of Persia
Rome Total Realism - for allowing the use of several models
Europa Barbarorum - For their animations pack
Dark Fenrir - For several models and skins
Lupus_Gr - For several faction Icons
Swampthing - For his stats balancing system
Uranos - For Mapping
King Louise Assurbanipal - For skins/Models
Alxcruel - For Skins/Models
The Lordskinner - For original Forums
Julius caesar - For coding
Irish Lord - For Skins
Bananafish - For research
Swordfish - For early Website development and Music
Darkragnar - For Indian Music
Mr Jones - For research
VandalCarthage - Historian
wipeout140 - For coding
Antiochus Epiphanes - For skinning
Lentonius - For skin/model
Marcvs Traianvs - For hosting the beta

Conditions of use:

This mod is for personal use only, anyone who wishes to use parts of our mod in a modification of their own must obtain the express permission of the full Rise of Persia team first.

Enjoy!

[Geoffrey S]

Nice map and units. How far does the map stretch exactly? It looks like it'd be half of India.

[Nero]

Yes it includes about half of India. To be complete, it stretches from Italy to India and from the Aral sea to the tip of Ethiopia.

[Nero]

The beta is released now. Check the first post :)

[Helgi]

Hi Nero, with exception to the greeks, the Near Eastern armies with skythia included, look the same, the Persians look great, but the Median, Babylonian and Skyrhian force look the same, granted theis a the DUH question but it should be asked anyway, you will be adding more units?\
:help:

[Nero]

Yes they all have the same armies, except the playable factions. We will, of course, give the currently unplayable factions accurate units as well, but it takes some time :) We chose to use these placeholder units because a faction, how dull it is, is stronger than rebels and gives the player a harder campaign to play.

[Kambyses]

Hi Nero;
Great work man.It looks very realistic ,Although needs some more work.But is is overally good.Will you release it in this year(2006) or we must waite more?
Which factions are playable?Can you name them?

Keep up the good work mate
-Kambiz

[Nero]

At least Babylon will be playable in the next version. Here's their preview:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1183908

Lydia is also in the finishing stages of development, we can preview them soon too. I really can't give you a date yet, not even an assumption. There's too much to be taken into consideration for that.