Htw Spin-off Mod - Ancient: TW

[macsen rufus]

Latest news: I've been working a bit on the Phoenicians, but been having trouble with the research - shedloads of stuff about the "Punic" (ie Carthaginian) era, but not much at all about early iron age. So I've had to speculate a bit ~D

I've taken away the heavy guard cavalry, and made the Phoenician marines the bodyguard unit, so the roster so far is:

Phoenician marines (BG) - homeland Ugarit, Phoenicia and Canaan only
Slingers
Tower shield spearmen
Eastern archers
Phoenician archers (elite, compound bows, good attack, small unit)
Parashim
Eastern light cavalry
Eastern swordsmen
Phoenician colonial militia (requires COLONY - see below)

They get a price bonus for Phoenician warships, and a valour bonus on marines in Phoenicia (ie Tripoli) and also they have a good list of authentic Phoenician names.

The COLONY depends on a resource (Forest has been allocated to "Historically Phoenicians colonised this region"), so can only be built in a few provinces scattered around the Med - Morocco, Tunisia, Tartessus (Cordoba?), Granada, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia and Alisya (Cyprus). It allows training of colonial troops - so far only the militia has been implemented, which is a medium-weight, low-morale spear phalanx unit, but will also extend to Iberian skirmishers and berber cavalry in appropriate areas, and probably more units later. The traditional date for the founding of Carthage was 814BC, so you have 166 years to get there on time :beam: The COLONY also has an income of course, as they were trading centres most of all.

Just so I'm not wasting a whole resource on a single faction, I will also add in a new building for the other factions, which can be built in the same places, namely a "Phoenician trading post". This will allow others to 'trade with Phoenicians' and thereby (a) earn some more income, and (b) access new military technology. The westward spread of iron weapons and iron-working knowledge is believed to have been fuelled by the Phoenicians, and this is what this building will attempt to recreate.

I think I might have to remove the valour bonus for slingers from Canaan (Palestine) as the Israelites under AI control do not tech up very well. Whilst I was testing the Phoenicians, the Israelites just had a whole host of slingers and a few chariots and nothing else, other than the startpos units. Then the Egyptians ate them :clown:

I'm looking into what we can do for the Edomites, Moabites and Aramaeans (though to be honest I'm tempted simply to give Arabia to the Aramaeans, as I have called the province Aramaea anyway :beam: ). Sinai is a tough start position for the Edomites - I think I might have to give them some extra income from something like a "caravan stage post" or something. From what I've read in the last day or so it seems they depended heavily on the caravan trade down to Yemen, and also copper mining. I've been toying with the idea of a copper mine in Sinai anyway, so this would give another good reason for it - as well as another reason for the other factions to take it, apart from the camels ~D I might add in an Edomite melee camel unit as well, with really low upkeep, so the Edomites can build up some forces, and probably also give them the nubian unit roster, too. (In my research I've come across quite a few sites claiming various ancient tribes/civilisations were originally "Ethiopian" - ie black-skinned peoples, so that would probably work okay.)

So.... I think maybe those Edomite names will come in handy :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

I realised I've not put up any screenies recently, so here's a wee 'trailer' for the LATE era....

The starting positions so far:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000038.jpg

New faction, by special request :beam: :

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000036.jpg

And here they are - note the two scrolls - in that province you need a bit of extra acumen :yes:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000039.jpg

Another new faction - a few years into the game:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000034.jpg

Pre-battle screen:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000033.jpg

Troop stats from battle:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000035.jpg

Enjoy :2thumbsup:

oh, and happy birthday Ignoramus :balloon2:

[Ignoramus]

Edomite names:

Nahath
Zerah
Shammah
Mizzah
Jeush
Jaalam
Korah
Timnah
Alvah
Jetheth
Aholibamah
Elah
Pinon
Kenaz
Teman
Mibzar
Magdiel
Iram



Edomite Kings:

Bela
Johab
Husham
Hadad
Samlah
Saul
Baalhanan
Hadar

The Edomites would be very similar to the Israelites, considering that Jacob and Esau were brothers. I doubt they would have any Nubian soldiers.

The mod looks great, though.

[russia almighty]

Hey dude questions .

#1 latest version

#2 is this stand alone or do I have to have HTW

#3 Does the mod have its own installer?

#4 what else do I need?

[macsen rufus]

Hi Russia Almighty,

1) Latest version is still beta 1 with a patch and a bug-fix - see here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=86348) for download links and instructions

2) No, you don't need HTW, but you DO need XL 2.1 - it runs on the XL map (in short, this was because it was easier for me to get HTW units working in XL than to get the XL map working in HTW :beam: )

3) Current version doesn't have an installer, but the next one will (to be released shortly....) PLEASE NOTE: the next issue will have changed so much it will be a complete new install rather than a patch/upgrade.

4) ... erm.... a bit of an interest in the era and a lot of spare time ~D

@ Ignoramus - thanks for the names - currently the Edomites are running with Aramaic names, so I'm sure they'll be more comfortable now :2thumbsup: Also added in the Aramaeans over the weekend and they work well.

The Edomites are quite tough, not enough money, not easy to expand, but I have proved it CAN be done, so it's not impossible (just looks like it when you start the campaign :laugh4: )

[Cangrande]

I'm having problems with it (see below)

What exactly is XL?

Cheers

[macsen rufus]

Hi Cangrande,

XL is a mod by VikingHorde that adds lots of factions and tweaks, but most importantly a campaign map with some extra provinces. This is the one that the Ancient mod is designed to install over. I would recommend XL for its own sake - it's what I usually play for the Mediaeval timeframe. But you will need a second install for ancient as it overwrites unit animations etc.

What you will need is the "small" version - aka 'XL Lite' - and the v2.1 patch for it. It seems people have been struggling to get it recently, so there is a new link to it in this thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=31201&page=42) posted by Omanes.

Then just follow the instructions in the download sticky for Ancient.

[Cangrande]

Thanks, but the link is dead.

Msg says it's expired or been removed :(

Are there any others?

[macsen rufus]

Okay, try here instead:

http://www.3ddownloads.com/totalwar/MTW/Stats/VH_MTW_XL2_Light.exe

and:

http://www.3ddownloads.com/totalwar/MTW/Stats/VH_MTW_XL21_Light_Patch.exe

Which is where I got them from originally, but I couldn't find the links yesterday :embarassed:

I'll also put this into the sticky.

[Cangrande]

Thanks Macsen, that seemed to do the trick!

Custom battle and Campaign seem to function ok. Quick battle not up and running yet?

All I need to do now is figure out how to use the HTW icon to make a shortcut. So if anyone can help I'd appreciate it!

Cheers!

[macsen rufus]

Hi Cangrande

- if you've got the custom battles working it's more than I've managed :laugh4: Last time I tried it CTDed on me - the unit_prod entries for custom battles aren't all sorted out properly so you may get some unusual unit choices, though ~D

To set up the icon you need to go to your desktop, and right-click on the icon you currently have and select PROPERTIES and there is a CHANGE ICON button at the bottom. Click this and browse through to your Ancient:TW folder and it should allow you select the new one from there. One day I'll do a proper one for it, but for now I'm not sure what format the image uses - previous attempts have failed :no:

Let me know how you get on with the campaign, we need a few AARs now I think :2thumbsup:

Oh and quick battles aren't set up at all, you'll just have the default MTW (maybe XL?) ones in there - which will crash of course!

[Sigma]

Will the castles on the battlemaps be modded to fit the era in later releases?

[macsen rufus]

I've finally got to grips with GDS now, and have started converting the battlefield unit icons. Anyone who's played the Egyptians so far should appreciate this:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000040.jpg

The Hittite swords, spears and Assyrian (kisir sharruti) archers have also been done.

Greetings sigma :bow: For now I'm using the castle maps from Hellenic as they're such great designs, and have made a handful of new ones for some "barbarian" lands - which will really only show up in Britain so far. I might do some more later, but I don't think I'll be doing any new models etc (I draw the line at 3D modelling - and don't have the tools, either ~D) It's really only the higher levels that have stone parts that look a bit anachronistic - although in function they are fine - walls lined with archers go WAY back as a means of defence. I've kept the higher levels of castle out of reach of the "barbarian" factions, so they can't go too wild on the castle building front.

[macsen rufus]

:book: Oh boy, you DO come across some wierd stuff on teh interwebs when researching subjects like Edomites and Israelites.... :no:

[naut]

:book: Oh boy, you DO come across some wierd stuff on teh interwebs when researching subjects like Edomites and Israelites.... :no:
Don't be like me and misspell Essex when finding coat-of-arms images. :embarassed:

[russia almighty]

I'll just wait for the installer version . I've not had good luck involving TW stuff and having to manually install files.

[macsen rufus]

I hope you don't have to wait too much longer, RA. I think the latest version is pretty close to a releasable point, just have a bit of tidying up to do, and a couple of extra units to add in. I plan to get it done before July 20th as I'll be off work then and not online for a couple of weeks (unless I finally get around to getting a broadband connection at home ~D )

And Rhythmic :laugh4: I can see your problem with that one.... what in heraldic terms might be described as "loins rampant" :clown:

[russia almighty]

Dude if you ever get the chance though consider doing a bronze age mod for M2TW . You already have the research and M2 surprisingly has alot of base models for what you need unit wise .

[Sigma]

This has been an outstanding mod for me so far, I've been taking over Europe and plan on converting the entire known world to my Tribal ways :P

The only problem I've been having is on some province assults and castle assults my game will CTD if I try to command the battle personally, so I usually have to auto resolve those battles to get by the CTD :(

Hope that gets fixed, other then that, awsome mod, I like it :D

[macsen rufus]

@RA - I have no plans for M2TW - I don't have M2TW myself, so wouldn't even know where to start on modding for it. Maybe I'll try it out after it's been patched a couple of times :beam:

@Sigma - glad you're enjoying the mod :bow: There's a few things that may be causing the CTDs - so I wonder what faction you're playing, and have you installed everything that has been released so far (ie the patch and the bug-fix?) Also, with the castles, do you know which provinces they were in? And what level of castle? With the HTW castle maps there is a map numbering issue that needs to be addressed (hopefully for the next release ~D) which means that Citadel and above gives you an empty field (and an easy exploit when assaulting, but don't tell anyone :wink:) Some provinces in Britain have dedicated maps, so if it's one of those it would help to know :2thumbsup:

CTDs in battle mostly come down to the FACSHIELD folders, so will only affect certain units for certain factions. This was partly addressed in the bug-fix, but the next release will cure it once and for all, as those folders will no longer be used.

The next release will be either before 20th July or after 6th August and will include the LATE era, which is shaping up quite nicely. I've just about sorted out the historical kings now, the unit roster is more varied, cavalry is becoming available, and the unique contribution of the Phoenicians is factored in. Egypt has a more Libyan flavour to it, as by this time the native dynasty was ousted, and we start the era with Psusennes I in power - and events could get interesting around 945BC if you don't run the country well :beam:

The whole Mid-East is more interesting with an independent Israelite kingdom, Aramaeans (representing the Damascus regime of Hadadezer I), Edomites, and a seriously weakened Assyria compared to previous eras. The Phoenicians need to look to the sea and exploit their historical colonies. Asia Minor is mostly over-run by Phrygians, and the Neo-Hittite Kingdoms are holding on around Cilicia. In Europe proper the main change is the Etruscans, who are getting more organised and developing heavy infantry, but only in a very small homeland area - otherwise they have to rely on tribal auxiliaries. The Mycenaeans have been replaced by the Hellenes, who hold sway as far east as Cyprus (Alisya is no longer an independent state).

I have also removed the valour-bonus for slingers from Canaan, as the Israelites trained nothing but stacks of slingers ("Well, if a sling was good enough for David ... :drama3:" )

I'm currently running an Etruscan campaign to test the new unit roster, and see that Israel is actually expanding, so something has changed down there. I've never seen the AI build Solomon's Temple, yet, though :no:

Oh, and there is a new folder of portraits for Levantine factions (Israel, Edom and Aramaeans) for more variety. And the tech tree has been tweaked a bit more so that the royal court line is a bit more sensible.

[Ignoramus]

Great to hear it macsen! I just got VI, so I'll be trying the Early and High eras shortly.

Do the various factions have temples for their respective Gods? E.g. Rimmon for the Aramaemens, Baal for the Phoenicians etc.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Ignoramus, glad to hear you'll be joining us in the Bronze Age :2thumbsup:

Temples are something that need a bit more work. So far most of the "muslim" cultures (ie literate, eastern kingdoms) just have a generic "temple" and "temple complex", but the Egyptians have a 'Shrine of Horus' for everyday use, and also four unique temples: Set, Ra, Amun and Ptah which have offices associated with them ("Leader of Ra division" etc which have properties somewhat relevant to the god in question - eg Set is pretty heavy on dread, Amun heavy on acumen etc etc, but all have some command boost as well, as befitting a general leading one of the Pharaoh's four divisions :2thumbsup: ) The temples also give morale up to +4 for Ptah.

The Israelites have tabernacles and a unique Temple of Solomon (to train Mushite Shiloh Priests and Aaronid High Priests). The Temple also has an income as it centralised all sacrifices to one site. Aaronid priests also spread dissent, due to the controversy over the sacrifice thing....

The Prytani have Stonehenge which CANNOT be rebuilt if it's destroyed (build req = citadel, Prytani can't build a citadel ~D), and this has a +4 morale boost. A good reason to not lose Wessex :beam: Other pagans can only get up to +3 morale from Pagan Sacrificial Shrine.

The other thing I will do with the temples is add more offices, so even where the building itself may be "generic" the title will be more specific: Hittites to get a "High Priest of Teshub", Phoenicians "High Priest of Ba'al" (or El, or Ashtarte etc) and so on. I'll probably do these when I go over the titles - I need to tie in offices etc to the recent tech-tree changes I made, so it makes sense to do it all together.

One other thing: I've decided to add in Urartu as a faction for the Late era, and shall be getting on with research there, but they will have very humble beginnings - they didn't really emerge as a power in 980BC, so a bit of building-up is in order. But the unit roster will be interesting I hope, and also it will break up the dominance of certain units in that part of the map.

[Sigma]

I'm playing my game as the Prytani (so I could easily take Briton and Ireland quickly :egypt: ) none of the Briton or Irish provences ctd which was very good, it was some of the provences in central europe and France that are giving me slight problems with ctd, I'll try to remember the names when my memory begins to work again :P

[macsen rufus]

@ Sigma: I wonder, were you facing the Ligurians by any chance -- their faction number is above 20 and so any FACSHIELD folder unit would CTD in battle...

catch you tmrw :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

UPDATE:

New faction:


URARTU

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000043-1.jpg


EDIT: The new shield & colours are now done, and a few Urartuan units added: Urartuan Royal Guard, Urartuan Spearmen, and Urartuan Horse Archers. Also the king names are sorted.

Currently using temporary shield and names, just to get them working ~D Will do a proper shield and name file for them tonight. Also added a new unit for Trebizond and Armenia only: Cascan warband (at last!) which is a smallish sword + javelin unit that can hide in the open, and pretty much all the Urartuans can train early on (I said this had to be a challenging start position). Excellent ambushers for defence, though :2thumbsup:

A few more province names changed as well - bye-bye 'Genoa', it's now 'Liguria', and Provence has become 'Western Liguria', Armenia is obviously Urartu, and Rome has reverted to its Etruscan name 'Ruma'. I really wish there were some reliable ancient names for north and west Europe, though :no:

[axel]

Nice mate ill be playing acient total war again and do somme bug report mate i did have little time the past fue months

[russia almighty]

So I'm guessing old school Armenia is going to have some of the best heavy cavalry ?

[macsen rufus]

Hi RA - yes, indeed! It seems even in the days of Urartu cavalry from that region was pretty good - even though cavalry was still a shiny new invention straight out of the box :2thumbsup: From what I've read so far on Urartu, they took a lot of Assyrian ideas for their military, had good horse breeding stock and quite well advanced metallurgy. Far from being a sideline in the area, apparently at one time they controlled an area that reached from the Mediterranean coast in Cilicia, into modern Iran and up into Colchis (Georgia)

Really the Urartu Kingdom should begin in about 840BC, so it's a bit of an anachronism at 980BC, but you have to make some compromises with game mechanics :beam:

The unit roster so far is:

Urartuan Royal Guards (BG) - heavy cav similar to Assyrian Qurubte sa shepe guards - dismount to Ur. spears
Urartuan Horse Archers - (similar to Cimmerian HA but 120 instead of 80 man unit - can dismount to Eastern Archers)
Cascan warband (homeland Urartu and Trebizond only - available to Urartu and pagan factions only)
Urartuan Spearmen - similar to Assyrian kisir sharruti spears
Eastern Light Cavalry (dismount to eastern swordsmen)
Light chariots
Tribal warriors
Slingers
Miners
Battering ram (homeland unit in Assyrian sphere of influence)

When you spread out a bit more other units become available in their homelands, eg Lydian units westward across Asia Minor, Chaldean skirmishers in Assur etc.

You will notice there are no archers in there yet - I'm still undecided, and might just leave them with the HA (which can dismount when needed), pending further research...

Unique offices: "Royal Metallurgist" with Copper Mine Complex, and "High Priest of Khaldi" with temple complex.

I'm currently playing testing the faction, and it is an interesting start position stuck between the Neo-Hittites, Assyrians and Cimmerians, and I've also come to blows with the Israelites, who are being surprisingly aggressive in this game - they wiped out the Assyrians (no Babylonian captivity in this alternate universe :laugh4: )

The strategy so far seems to be defensive turtling with opportunistic lightning attacks whenever the neighbours look weak.

[macsen rufus]

Hi folks - I'm going to be off-line til 6th August, but all being well shall return with a new install with the last era in place :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Well mate
you have a nice holiday cya soon :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Hi folks, I'm back, and as promised....

.... there is a new release :balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2:

I will put it into the downloads sticky later, but you can get it here (http://www.mydatabus.com/public/macsenrufus/AncientTWfullinstallv1_0.exe)

This includes the new era, a total of 26 factions and 102 units across all eras, and the animations are sorted so that no "facshield" folders are used, which will cut out a major source of CTDs. The castlemaps have been reorganised, there are some new info pics, and lots of extraneous and duplicated material removed, so the installer now only weighs in at 115MB instead of 246MB as before (which means twice as many downloads per day!)

It is a complete new install, and not compatible with old save games. It is best installed as a completely fresh version, although it MIGHT work if installed over your beta copy, but no guarantees - I've not tested it this way.

There is also available a small spreadsheet (http://www.mydatabus.com/public/macsenrufus/Ancientunitguide.xls) available which gives a basic unit guide - ie who can train what units, in which provinces, and with which buildings. There are NO UNIT STATS in this guide -- I'd like to say that they were omitted to keep the surprise element and not spoil your game experience, but the truth is they got deleted by accident when I was preparing the spreadsheet :wall:

There's still a bit of tidying up to do, but not enough to delay the release. I also hope to add in a bonus campaign later....

[Ignoramus]

Glad to see you back macsen.

I hope you'll do another ancient campaign. There are not many mods like these around.

[macsen rufus]

Good to be back, too, except being on-line means being at work :laugh4:

The bonus campaign will (ok, it's still a 'might' at this stage) also be an ancient timeframe, but will require some changes to the campmap - I think I have the tools to do that, now - and will use some of the HTW animations not used so far in Ancient TW. It will have fewer factions, so I'll be able to use the "facshield" folders for animations (part of the long-term planning in this last release, by the way :2thumbsup: )

BUT before I start, I will need to check out some other mods to make sure I'm not re-inventing the wheel...

[axel]

Hi mate
welcome back
but for somme reason i cant get this to download i cane download every mod except this one it s the samme problem i have before:dizzy2:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel - I don't know what the problem is - there's been six copies downloaded so far, so it's definitely working at the hosting end. And this time that's not enough to have used up all the daily bandwidth (should be able to do 8 full downloads per day, now). All I can suggest is keep trying... Have you tried to get the unit guide, at least it will prove if it's a more general problem, or just the big file...

GL + keep trying

[axel]

Hi mate
yes i tried to download the unit guide and i got the same problem, i really dont know wot the problem may be i switch of my virus protection and ad watch and firewall and still i cant download, but this is only with Acient downloads mate i never ever did have problems with downloading i even downloaded other mods to see if the problem may be with my PC,but they all work fine this is really strange.
I hope somme one cane help me or tewll me wot the problem is i really want to download this mod

[axel]

i just tried it again and it did nt work i download all my programs with download accelera 5 plus. and it says cannot retrieve file info. cannot search for mirrors thats wot it say s on bottom of Downlaod Accerera

[macsen rufus]

I just tried to log in to mydatabus.com and it looks like the site is down :oops:

I'm going to have to check my emails, see if there's any explanation come through. More news when I have it...

[macsen rufus]

Lions, Tigers, and Outages.. Oh my
As many of you probably already know, we experienced issues with our primary internet connection yesterday afternoon and overnight... We're sorry!



I know that it can be extremely frustrating when something you have come to depend on isn't available, and we take the trust you have placed in our service seriously. There are plans in motion to improve connectivity to our main data center, but unfortunately it often takes time to do these things right.


At myDataBus.com it is our goal to not only give you the best service available, but also to engineer our systems and networks for most reliable service we can provide. That commitment is one reason we use Amazon.com's S3 storage to keep your files safe and readily available, and why we continue to innovate behind the scenes as well as in your browser.


Thanks again for using myDataBus.com!



It's now back online, so you can all continue the downloads :balloon2:

And the bonus campaign is coming along nicely, but I doubt it will be ready for a few weeks....

[axel]

No mate still not working for me :dizzy2: verry odd

[axel]

Ok the unit list work just fine i got the unit list but the mod wont work is there somme other place i cane download this mod mate???

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel - yes, very odd - it's been downloaded 17 times now, so it's definitely working at that end, and we're nowhere near the bandwidth limit at the moment (though I can't be sure about last night, or whenever you last tried it). Have you tried doing it just with your browser rather than a DL manager? It's simply a file sharing site, so it's designed for bog standard browsers to handle.

And, no, there are no ther copies available, just on the one server.

Is there anyone else having problems?

[axel]

ok mate i got the mod:2thumbsup:
must i install it over the other one or must i install MDW and install the mod again ??

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel, it's designed to go on a fresh clean install of XL lite, but I think it will work if you put it over the beta - but I've not tested it. The instructions in the sticky have been updated if you have any doubts.

Make sure you remove the old unit_prod and build_prod files if you do try it over your beta copy :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Ok mate so i will put a fresh Medieval total war with update s on and install the mod .
ill will be doing this this week thx mate:2thumbsup:

[Sigma]

It didn't work for me when I installed it over the beta, you will get weird results...

[macsen rufus]

Hi Sigma, thanks for comfirming that! I thought it might not work, as so much has changed, notably all the unit animation folders. On the plus side, I think it might actually go straight on to MTW-VI without the XL - I realised over the weekend that I seem to have duplicated the XL bits from my development copy into the the install, but I still have to check it. Didn't mean to, I hope VH is the forgiving type....

Another thought I had was that by reorganising some of the directories, there's a chance that the install could become some 30MB smaller as well!

If this works out there could be a version 2 release, but it will take a while to test it all out - technically speaking, if I don't use textures sub-directories, it won't be necessary to include the MapTex.tga files in the download, and they are huge files.

I've also started work on a new campaign map, with a view to making an expansion pack later. I have to get some new tools working, like LMM, or it will be a very long-winded job to do it all "by hand", but what I tried over the weekend convinced me I can do it, given enough time! Basically I've successfully moved Northumbria into Africa, and worked through all the border info etc so it now works as eastern Libya, instead - and Scotland is twice its old size and has a border with Mercia! I hope when the expansion is done it will all make sense. Look on it as part of the map-making learning curve :2thumbsup:

Edit: whee - finally got the correct version of ReadBif and the latest DLL required, so hopefully my LMM will now work! If so, then it's full steam ahead on the new campaign map for the expansion ....

[Ignoramus]

I can't seem to install XL properly. I get the new campaign maps, but not the factions.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Ignoramus,

What version of MTW:VI do you have, and is it fully patched? I'm not aware of any difficulties with XL before, it's a pretty well tried-and-tested mod by now. And do you have the XL patch as well?

Anyway, as per the last post, I think Ancient should now install straight into MTW:VI without needing XL, so maybe give that a go... I'm going to test that myself tonight, so should have more idea tomorrow.

What factions are you missing?

[western]

Hi Macsen

Great news that you have learned to Mod the map - it must be pretty hard or it would have been done a lot more times.

I downloaded latest version no probs and it looks and plays really well. But it would look even better if you could get rid of anachronistic map names like Antioch, Wessex, Normandy, Ile de France etc (though what to put in their place isn't always simple) and it would play even better if Mid-East conquest didn't ram up against the buffers of available provinces so quickly and fewer factions were one-province-wonders.

If you can Mod the map, possibilities are almost endless. I wonder what your bonus campaign could be...:beam:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Western, thanks for the feedback. I think the anachronistic names are about my biggest niggle with it now, but as you've spotted, the hard part is finding authentic alternatives, especially for northern and western Europe :book:

Damn those illiterate forebears of ours :laugh4:

A few more provinces for the Mid-East would be good - maybe Edom in the proper place, Moab, something else in northern Syria like Carchemish or Bit-Adini - pity Arabia is such a useless space on the map - Ammon, maybe, but we really are getting into bit-part players with a big chunk of dirt. The irony of urbanisation, I suppose - all the "big guys" as factions are crammed right up next to each other on the map...

I'd also like to redraw some borders around Asia Minor - Nicaea is too big to really be Arzawa, for instance. Which would mean conjoining a few European provinces, but to be honest, they can take it. So maybe a new map for the main campaigns one day, as well....

Territories notwithstanding, I am quite attached to my 'one-province wonders' , though - Ugarit, Urartu, Edom, Israel, Phoenicia, Alisya (and in late also Assyria and Egypt - oh, how are the mighty fallen ~D), they add a certain challenge IMHO.

I made tremendous progress with the new map last night - I have got LMM working, it's producing wonderful error-free test maps, but when I did a "full" run at 2am or so, it seemed to have trouble with "water on land" features. But even so, I think I'm 99% of the way to the map for the expansion, though. Needless to say I'm a bit groggy this morning :yes:

[macsen rufus]

I think I'm 99% of the way to the map for the expansion

:embarassed: Why oh why oh why don't I keep my big mouth shut? :clown:

I might be 99% there, but all the hard work's in the last 1%...

The big problem is that the LBM palettes seem to have changed between MTW1.1 and the VI add on. Once I have corrected the palettes (mostly done) I think I should be getting close.... Still LMM is an incredible tool, and even if it takes me another week to sort it all out, it will have saved me a month or more :2thumbsup:

More news when I have it....

[macsen rufus]

:balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2: Yihaa!!!! :balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2:

The new map is finally working, and there's just the tidying up to do now - it has rather unromantic province names like Regio01 to Region47, and all border crossings are LUSH, FLAT, NO RIVER etc, but it's not too hard to sort those out. Now that it's playable, I realise I have a lot more room than expected, so will probably subdivide the provinces a bit more, for more detail where it counts. Then the background map needs updating (remove the old province names, redraw the sea borders - the naval side is a bit confusing, as the old sea regions are marked on the map, but they do not correspond with the new ones ~D)

Then I can press on with the units and factions - eight factions so far, but I might actually make 6 of these minor, as the real action is with just two of them....

[Ignoramus]

Let me guess, Alexander versus the Persians? Rome versus Carthage?

[macsen rufus]

That would be telling.... ~D

[western]

Hi Macsen

Intriguing:yes: I'm hoping the Assyrians are maybe in there. Those guys really were world conquerors of their day. But there's no point hoping - just got to wait for you to tell us. Good luck with this. I'm amazed how few new maps ever got made:2thumbsup:

[axel]

wooow good going mate

[macsen rufus]

I'm amazed how few new maps ever got made

After doing one, I'm not :laugh4:

It is incrediby complex, and there are so many things that CAN go wrong, debugging is a nightmare - pretty much all you know is that it isn't working, with very few clues. However, I did learn heck of a lot about the process, and the "rules" of the map, and a few more things that can "kill" a scenario. The most annoying one of all is the way the game can be very picky about the NAMES of PROD_FILES. One that had me baying for blood was that the new campaign worked with a file called NM_unit_prod.txt, but when I changed its name to NM2_unit_prod.txt, it didn't - this one has caught me before, and it is infuriating!:furious3:

Actually, the only other completely new map I'm aware of is the one for HTW, most of them are just variations of the original map with extra provinces (like the XL one). NTW used a new backdrop, but with original borders, Age of Warlords (IIRC) has a few extra provinces/islands but I'm not sure if that one's still going.

I do have plans for at least one more new map, after this one, and I have the "base map" ready but will need to do some research for borders etc. Then onwards with the next expansion :2thumbsup:

And I'm also tempted to do a map of the USA and maybe turn American Total War (the Nap add-on custom/MP expansion) into an SP campaign as well, but that's a LONG way into the future :clown:

As for the Ancient expansion - I'll announce it when it's released! But I'm making good progress now, started getting units and homelands sorted last night...


EDIT:
And if you're fishing for clues the name of the UNIT_PROD won't help -- NM means "New Map" ~D

[Ignoramus]

I sense this will be good...

[western]

Hi Macsen

There is one other new map I'm aware of. Italy Total War had a 70 province map of Italy and the Adriatic that wasn't just a blow up of the original (unlike Reconquista). Worked fine but it was monochrome, with no colour distinction between land and sea. It was surprising how much that detracted from the feel of the game. You spend a lot of time staring at the map so it helps if it is a)mildly pretty/interesting and b)actually reflects the period and isn't a set of random lines. Judging from the look of Ancient TW, I guess you've got those bases covered :egypt:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Western - I hadn't heard of the Italy mod at all, and the Reconquista style is pretty much the way I've gone - blown up original, but with some extra land added in. I've tried to be accurate with the borders, as much as you can be when you're zoomed in painting individual pixels :laugh4: I have various sources for who lived/oppressed where and when, and of course they often contradict each other ~D

I've added in another five regions overnight, and redrawn some of the background map, so that the visible sea boundaries match with the ones the game knows about... the naval side is a lot less confusing now. Oh, and I've removed the landbridge lines as well :2thumbsup:

Tonight I hope to get the new provinces into the startpos etc, and maybe see if there's any others I can get in there...

[western]

Hi Macsen

Anticipation grows :2thumbsup: I like my MTW map's design, so a blow-up basis sounds good to me. Reconquista has always been one of my faves - even more if only it had included a bit of Morocco and southern France (and maybe Genoa and Sardinia...

One odd thing about the Reconquista map - if you look real close you can see where the old sea province lines used to be. It's almost like they've been manually overpainted. You don't see this on the land though.

One thing I did with that map (because the seas didn't lead anywhere) was I added some river ports (by putting ports on the river, taking a spare sea province, closing it off, then linking the relevant land provinces to it). Doesn't look too odd if the sea province is either tucked away or at the river's mouth, and it does make sense if you think how important rivers were as key lines of movement and trade. Only really suits a large scale map though - like Reconquista.

[macsen rufus]

I can say you won't see any old lines on mine - I've been a tad more devious and used clone-stamp rather than overpaint - there may be the odd area which might look like something's happened, but it's all down to local currents really :laugh4: And the new sea borders are in a different style to lead the eye away, too....

I like the idea of navigable rivers, but I guess you need a highly magnified map for it to work. It's the sort of thing that did have real strategic import (like the Vikings reaching Byzantium via the Volga and Don IIRC). There are a couple of rivers that did/could have such an impact in this scenario, so I'll see what I can do....

Glad to report that the NEW new map is working - now up to 52 provinces, and I added in the province names as well before falling asleep over my mouse last night :2thumbsup: Some names are still provisional as well as provincial, and still a bit of research required for some of the "castle" names. There were about 25 new borders to insert, about 5 to delete, and only one serious hitch when I declared one neighbouring province as 'ID_LANDREG_' instead of 'ID_LANDREG_39' - :oops:

There were a couple of rather surreal looking maritime castles where I messed up the SetCastle coordinates, but at least it proved that the coordinates still place things, even when they don't actually coincide with the actual province on the map. Oh, and one province ended up with two rival castles - first time I've seen a castle invade rather than an army :laugh4:

[macsen rufus]

The new map is now up to 55 (working!) provinces, and I've added in the province names, and regional rebels. I'm going to try one or two rivers to penetrate inland a bit, and then I think the map itself is finished. Then comes the fun bit of resetting the various borders (every land border is still 'lush, flat, inland'), and adding resources, trade goods and farm incomes.

Then the units and factions need to be finished off, and starting units placed.... and it should be all ready to release :2thumbsup: Ok, maybe I'll play a few trial campaigns first ~D

[western]

Hi Macsen

55 sounds a good number. Not too few, but not so many that conquering the lot would be too unrealistic or too tedious.

Presume these provinces each relate to an original province, and if so, I wonder where Golden Horde would appear if you rolled the years forward :inquisitive:

Regarding factions, one thing I'd say is fighting always the same type of army can get a bit dull. I like Poles on Pike and Musket, for example, because - without getting too unrealistic and rampaging across Europe or the Middle East - you can be shuttling between fighting Germans in the west, Russians in the east, Turks and Golden Horde in the south, and then the Swedes poke their noses in - all different types of armies. On your Mod I like the Assyrians because you get various civilized foes to fight and also steppe barbarians. Just a thought - and all thoughts offered in ignorance of what the location and time period is (I'm guessing Middle East and I'm hoping not too early, when people were basically just hitting each other with sticks, but we shall see) :yes:

[Sigma]

I hope this is a Alexander Vs. Persians senerio :P or a middle eastern campaign with Babylon etc.

[macsen rufus]

Made a bit more progress over the weekend - decided to call it a day at 55 provinces, and will now make the appropriate cosmetic changes to the MapTex (ie remove the old region names left over!)

I've added in a new faction, a minor one, but right in the thick of things, and it's an interesting one to play. All the rebel names (ie faction names and personal names) are aligned, and names for the major factions are sorted. A few historical heroes have been added, offices tweaked, new buildings added. Province attributes are about half-done - sorted the river and climate zones, but have yet to do the terrains. Then I have to go through all of the borders one by one - I think there's about 250 different borders. On the offices, there are some interesting ones, that you will need to use very carefully... an uncharitable player would say they've been booby-trapped, but it's all in keeping with the nature of the offices in question :2thumbsup:

I still need to rename the sea regions (they're still Sea 01 to Sea 24 yet ~D). There will be at least three more factions to add (but there will be no more than 20 overall, as I will be using the "dangerous" animation folders, to get more unit types in).

@Western, roll the date forward all you like, there won't be any Golden Horde province, as I've used the Viking system of Landreg/Seareg/FN_## :2thumbsup:

As I said, there's a main focus to the campaigns, so conquest all over the map is largely pointless - it won't help you win - except in as much as it may help you recruit some different foreign troops. Also "peripheral" territories tend to be quite large, the more "involved" areas are subdivided more, so the regions are where they matter more. Troop availability is strongly biased towards culture and homelands, rather than factions, though obviously most if not quite all factions will have unique unit rosters (some of the minor factions will be similar), and there will certainly be variety of army styles.

I also have a few new units that need to be added in, some which will involve changes to the animations (new shields etc). I also hope to make the "heroes" a more significant part of this campaign.

Enough teasing, I must get back to work ~D

[macsen rufus]

Four new units added last night, and a few more to follow when I get some new shields done for the animations....

:embarassed: and I have to admit I DO have a problem, I'm addicted to new provinces, I mean, I try to stop, or at least cut down, but sometime the urges just overwhelm me and I have to do another. But this time it really is the last one, but it was begging to be included, honest. Now up to 56 ~D

Some province names also changed in light of new research, but I still have one corner of the map with a problematic name etc....

[macsen rufus]

Expansion pack latest:

More progress: more new units added with all new shields, changes to the campmap background image (no Mediaeval province names anymore... new ones to follow :2thumbsup: ). New factions getting new colours and flags/shields. I'm also working on the historical heroes lists as well - some of which will be anti-heroes, so beware ~D

I have nearly weaned myself off the new-province addiction, but every now and again I find myself eyeing a certain stretch of land and thinking "Hmmm, there's room for another castle in there..." :laugh4:

More news as and when, but I hope this is getting close to release.

[macsen rufus]

Ok, two new factions added - minor, but significant ~D

But for realism, one of them requires an extra province (just a tiny, tiny one.....) so maybe the map will stretch up to 57, BUT THAT'S IT!

[western]

Ah, but how many sea provinces? Maybe we are too early for much naval war, but still I always thought that the old huge Eastern Med and Nile Coast didn't do justice to the complexity of trade routes and the difficulty of moving armies large distances by sea :egypt: (You can see I'm sticking to my theory that this is Middle Eastern.)

[macsen rufus]

Hi Western,


(You can see I'm sticking to my theory that this is Middle Eastern.)

Hmm, well, to quote one of my favourite fictional Machiavellian politicians "You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment." :laugh4:

But more seriously, the sea regions currently amount to 24, mostly where they count, but it is one of the things I'm looking at in my play-testing, to see how the sea regions work out and their strategic impact. I do think I need a few more (but new sea regions are a LOT less hassle than new land provinces :2thumbsup: ) I can see at least one extra that is required, and a possible candidate for either a boundary move or sub-division. Date notwithstanding, there was a significant naval aspect to this particular conflict....

I can report that 'province 57' has worked out well, it gives 'FN_18' a bit of an economic boost as well as throwing in a historical "cassus belli" into the wider scenario. However, bit-part faction 'FN_02', which needed to be split into two (thereby adding 'FN_08') has left two financially crippled one-province wonders, with very high upkeep armies and insufficient economies. So that part of the map needs a bit of economic attention, and perhaps some winding back of starting armies.

Apart from those bits above I have at least two more units to add, and will be remaking unit review panel, info_pic and battle icon images, as most of the new additions currently have placeholders (like Muwahid Foot and Early Varangian Guard etc images - very anachronistic and inappropriate, but it conveys the idea of offensive spear and kick-ass sword units for now ~D)

[macsen rufus]

After a couple of days just 'testing' FN_18 ~D, I've gone back and made a couple more tweaks. The two new sea regions are now implemented, FN_02 has been changed (as historically, my original FN_02 was under the occupation of FN_01 at the time, and so didn't exist....) and the slot has gone to a faction that did exist, but was missing from my original version. History is avenged! And the new FN_02 has a more interesting unit roster than the old one :2thumbsup:

I'm also considering some campmap changes for the MAIN CAMPAIGN, so would appreciate any feedback:

* redraw borders of Arzawa (currently MTW_Nicaea), and split MTW_Trebizond into "Ilios" in the west and "Casca" in the east.
* as Arzawa should cut into MTW_Anatolia, I want to make the south of MTW_Nicaea and MTW_Anatolia into "Lycia"
* I'd like another Middle Eastern state/province, probably Moab or Ammon
* new sea region for the "Phoenician Coast" (to run from Ugarit or Cilicia down to Sinai, cutting across both Eastern med and Nile Coast, maybe include eastern Cyprus as a coast to this one)

Of course, to make these province changes will mean I have to free up some province slots, and some will have to go! I'm currently looking at Estonia (pointless sub-division for the era), and some of the steppe provinces, plus combining Brittany and Normandy into a larger "Armorica".

Any other ideas, folks?

[russia almighty]

kick ass proto-hoplites?

[western]

Hi Macsen

My main thoughts are 1.that conquering Egypt (especially from the sea) should be a more protracted business and 2. that securing Egypt's western border ought not to mean casually conquering the desert all the way to Tunisia.

It's a shame the shape of the map doesn't allow Upper Egypt, but we have got enough to show Lower and Middle Egypt. :egypt: I'd also split Libya and show the eastern portion as either Tehenu (Land of the Olives) or Cyrenaica.

If you're up for it, you could reshape Spain a bit to emphasise difference between coastal and inland provinces (eg I'd turn Navarre into a Basque province, scrap Leon and Castile and replace with a north coast (Asturias?) and inland province

In terms of what to lose, Finland could merge with Novg without losing much at all. Switzerland could be merged with a neighbour. Pomerania and Brand might merge, or chop Silesia between Brand and Poland. I don't think any of these provinces have real meaning even in your later period.

Well, you did ask... :beam:

[Xehh II]

I'm just posting to say that I can't DL this mod, which kinda sucks.

[Ignoramus]

Splitting Palestine into Israel and Judah would be nice, as that way you could have the kingdoms of Judah and Israel instead of just have the united Kingdom of Israel.

Also, maybe splitting Greece into two separate parts would be more realistic.

You could merge Granada and Cordoba, and perhaps merge Prussia and Pommerania.

[macsen rufus]

Morning all, thanks for the input!

@Xehh - I don't know what the problem is, the bandwidth limit is fine (nothing downloading right now, so 100% capacity available). MyDataBus have temporarily suspended uploads, so there may be some technical issues currently, but that's only speculation as they don't say why uploads are suspended, and no mention of any interruption to downloads.

UPDATES:

Okay, here's the map changes I've done so far, corrections to the borders of Arzawa, Ilios and Lycia, plus the "Phoenician Coast" sea region:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000057.jpg

I will need to re-tweak some of the unit_prod entries to correct some homelands (Ilios, for instance, still thinks it's "Estonia"....)

Plus a historical hero, I'm not sure if I included him in the release or not, but he's in my beta copy ~D Best known as the guy who literally "wrote the book" of Hittite chariotry (I've fixed it so he now turns up as a chariot unit as well :2thumbsup: ... )

]https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000058.jpg

I like the idea of a bit more definition around Egypt, and also splitting Greece into two, maybe even three, parts, maybe tweaking southern Illyria in the process. However, I think I'll stick with Palestine/Canaan in one piece, as we start during the Unified Kingdom period, and this did grow for a while afterwards (at least under Solomon).

I'm also tempted to use up another sea region slot (only two spare now) and divide the Black Sea into north and south as well. Those coastlines always struck me as a bit indefensible, all it takes is one boat and you're away....


So, current list of candidates for annihilation: Finland (merge Novgorod), Normandy (merge Brittany), Champagne (merge IdF or Lorraine), Switzerland (merge Tyrolia - general "Alpine" region), and possibly Carpathia/Wallachia could be merged into a general "Carpathian" region, too.

This would free up five slots, and yes, I agree Spain could be rejigged from the mediaeval borders, though not necessarily altering numbers of provinces.

Current list of desirable additions: "Tehenu" (good to have a name for it :2thumbsup: ), Egypt into 2 parts, Ammon or Moab, 1 or 2 subdivisions of Greece. Also I don't like the size of "Naples" either, so possibly both Greece and Naples could be split into two. And that would use up the five slots created above.


And I'm also tempted to "re-unify" Khazar to bring it back to the "Pontic Steppe", or something...

[macsen rufus]

Oh, and I forgot to add: ANCIENT will load straight on to MTW:VI - it doesn't actually need XL after all (so much changed during development, I lost track of what had been replaced ~D)

[Xehh II]

Man, I wish I could get this, it is so cool.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Xehh,
I was just thinking of you - just checked mydatabus again, and see there's one more download done today, was wondering whether that was you finally meeting with success? From your last post I guess not :embarassed:

I take it you get the usual "download page" and a dialogue box for "Run or save"? Does it crash out then, give you some of it, or do something unimaginable? From your PM I think you said you'd turned off all your DL managers, pop-up blocker etc?

Don't know why, but it seems to choose one random victim per week, and makes him work REALLY hard at getting the download, and this week it's your turn :no:

Maybe I should look for a second host on the "belt and braces" principle :2thumbsup:

[Xehh II]

I might try again later, during the games, at least I've got something to watch then.

[axel]

Hi Xehh II,

do you have Download accelerator ?? if so you cane disable browser intergration and turn it back on after DL, this wos my problem in first it take me a fue day s to find this out lol cose i am a twat lol from time to time:dizzy2: if this is not your problem then maybe somme other DL program you got on or your security on your PC

[macsen rufus]

Morning all,

Xehh, Axel is our resident download problem expert now, having been one of the first "random victims" :beam:

Anyway, I've made the changes to the Black Sea (not drawn the new borders on to the MapTex yet, but the highlights show how they go). Certainly makes it a bit different around there now! Had bit of a struggle getting it to work at first, because I'd set everything up nicely for the ID_COLCHIAN_COAST, and eventually spotted that I had declared the neighbours for ID_CHOLCIAN_COAST .... DOH!

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000060.jpg

I'll make a start on the new (well, moved...) land regions tonight.

[axel]

Hi macsen rufus,

looking good mate looking good:2thumbsup:

[Xehh II]

All I know is, is that I'm using this Free Download Manager (http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/) and the problem I get is that when the DL stops I cannot resume it, this is a problem because it says it'll take about 5 hours to DL but my internet connection automaticly diconnects after about 4 1/2 hours, which wouldn't normally be a problem if I was able to resume the DL.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Xehh,

Have you tried without FDM? I'd have thought that if it does what it says on the website you should be nowhere near needing to resume. What speed net connection do you have?

I've just started a DL from here, to check it all goes okay - I'm on ISDN, have about 110kB/s available right now, and it's telling me about 20 mins, so I guess you're probably on dial up if it's telling you five hours? So far, it seems that all the problems we've had with downloads have been related to DL managers, dial-up connections, or the host site being down completely (which has happened a couple of times). Do you have any options like taking a memory stick to a web cafe?

Hmm, well it's downloaded okay - everything looks good, exactly the same size as the original I posted up (which is still on the same memory stick) etc.


Anyway, today's update, the new appearance of the Egyptian empire in early:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000061.jpg

In case you can't quite work out the new provinces, the one in the south of Egypt is Finland, and Pereyaslavl sits in between Libya and Tunisia :laugh4:

I shall move another couple of chunks of real estate tonight, and then tidy up the names, attributes and unit homelands.

:2thumbsup:

[Xehh II]

I have dial-up, that's why I need a download manager, I could try it without but I don't think it'll work, i'll try anyway. I don't even have one of those sticks so I couldn't do that either.

[macsen rufus]

@Xehh, well, if you can wait another few days, v2.0 is nearly ready, and I can pack that into 2 or 3 smaller packages for dial-up users. Seems a shame to endure all that pain twice in quick succession :2thumbsup:

The new main map is, I think, complete. The latest batch of changes were:

* merged Switzerland and Tyrolia
* merged Brittany and Normandy
* merged Champagne and Lorraine
* used the freed-up slots for Ammon, Moab and Makedon.
* border changes in Spain to make Castile an inland province, linking Navarre through to Leon.

I still need to adjust the unit homelands to make use of the "new" provinces, which shouldn't take too long. Then wonder whether I should add any new factions, or keep these all as rebel provinces for now?

[Ignoramus]

I would put them in(Ammon and Moab, I presume?), as that would help portray the East more accurately. And as the East's the focus of the mod, it should receive more attention.

[Xehh II]

@Macsen, I can't wait to try the next version. I'm sure it'll work with smaller parts.

[macsen rufus]

Here's a screenie from the latest version of the map, with Ammon and Moab showing, taken from an Alisyan viewpoint a few turns into the game:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000062.jpg

I've only tweaked the Early ("Age of Chariots") to run on this map so far, but over the weekend I hope to get all three up and running on it, including creating a couple of new factions, pending a bit of research. I might have to do some extra units, as Ammon and Moab are going to be pretty indistinguishable from the Edomites and Aramaeans in their unit rosters. I also need to find a suitable way to model their historic economic advantage of sitting along the "Royal Highway" and taxing one of the region's major trade routes - I was thinking I might give them the "Caravan Post" building that the Edomites currently have. I'm also not sure when the factions should apply - I think we can justify Moab in "early" as Ramses II left records claiming to have conquered the nation of mu'ab, as it's rendered in Egyptian, and I seem to recall mention of Ammonites in connection to the Exodus as well, though my biblical history is a bit shaky. They will both be in the "Late" era - else how could Solomon have had Ammonite and Moabite wives in his harem ~D

And yes, there is a river between Canaan and Ammon :2thumbsup:

Oh, and the southern province in Egypt I have called Thebes, mostly on the grounds that the various schisms in Egyptian history seemed to follow a theme of the Delta and Thebes going their separate ways, with the High Priests of Thebes forming rival dynasties. I've also shifted the recruitment zone for Nubian units down to Thebes, and out of Kemet.

In Europe, the barbarians don't seem to have noticed that Normandy, Switzerland and Champagne have been hijacked. The split in Greece seems to work, and although it might be a bit anachronistic for the earlier periods, I have called the northern section Makedon, and made it part of the homeland for a selection of Greek, Illyrian and Thracian units - a good reason for all of its neighbours to want to take it from the rebels :2thumbsup:

I haven't revisited Iberia yet, so I'm not sure how the changes to Castile (ie loss of coastline) are working out, but I suspect it's giving the IbCelts a bit of an advantage looking at the minimap.

[Ignoramus]

Nice work, it looks great!

The East is really opening up now that the old Medieval province boundaries have been altered. I can't wait to try an Assyrian campaign on the new map.

I can get you some Ammonite and Moabite names if you'd like.

Sorry about the article not going in last month's Gahzette; I have very nearly finished a major part of my year's schooling, so the article should be in this month's issue.

Keep up the good work!

[Ignoramus]

Ammonite kings:
Benammi
Sihon
Og
Nahash
Hanun
Shobi

Moabite kings:
Balak
Zippor
Eglon
Mesha

[macsen rufus]

Thanks for those, Ignoramus, the only names I'd managed so far were Nahash & Hanon for Ammon and Mesa/Mesha for Moab, which seem to the right ones for the start of the Late Era. Earlier it gets difficult, so we shall have to improvise :2thumbsup:

I'm glad to say that, although sparse, the history of Ammon and Moab don't throw up the same weird bull-:daisy: pseudo-history that searches on the Edomites produced :laugh4:

I want to pin down a better list of Aramaic names if possible, as with three factions now using the list, I'd like a bit more variety for the generals.

I suppose I ought to go do some work soon, but then again, I wouldn't even have come in if I didn't have two new factions to research ~D One of these days I'll get an internet connection at home...

[amarok]

Can't wait to play this mod!!!!! It looks amazing. I've been following it's development over the past months with great interest and anticipation.

I just want to add that like some others I'm also on dial-up :-(
and haven't had much success with the current download (1.0 option) at mydatabus.

I don't know how hard it is to do, and don't want to make any extra work for you, when you've already done so much, but it would be awesome if you could break 2.0 up into smaller pieces - maybe even three or four pieces. I can get 30 MB per session without a Dload manger (GetRight) or 40-45 MB with Getright.

Thank you for your sensitivity to this issue, Macsen Rufus - YOU ARE THE MAN!!!!!!!!

Thank you,
Amarok

[macsen rufus]

Hi Amarok, and thanks for the kind words :bow:

Back in the days of the first beta-release I did have extra ZIPs in four pieces, but as it turned out that install was rather bloated with unnecessary stuff, so it was still a bit large. I should be able to do the same again when v2.0 is released. I'm also looking at potential extra outlets like rapidshare which does support some DL managers, but I haven't finished reading all their "small print" yet.

Latest update: over the weekend, the Ammonites have made their appearance, and things are set up for the Moabites shortly, and the High era has also been ported across to the new map, with Late to follow shortly. I think I might need some new units to make the various "semitic" factions more unique - there are now Israelites, Aramaeans, Edomites, Moabites and Ammonites, all with very much the same unit roster.

[macsen rufus]

Ammonites and Moabites are now up and running - this is from the Moabite campaign - trying them out in "high" but I think in the end they will not be available til late, as that is the sort of era when they emerged as a kingdom rather than a vague tribal grouping:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000065.jpg

Anyone looking at the Ammonite flag will be aware I just can't resist a good pun ~D

[Sigma]

I love those Faction shields of sea shells and palm trees :P

[ULC]

Looks like the caribbean has invaded the middle east 2500 years from the future :juggle2: , oh well stranger things have happened I guess :laugh3: .

Looks good MR, can't wit to play, but just a suggestion. Remove/combine a few more provinces in the west to make more room in the east. Say, Anjou/Aquitiane, Sweden/Norway, Genoa/Milan, etc, As the northeast still looks a little sparse. I need to decimate my enemy with my Armenians!

[macsen rufus]

"Now, how did YLC find out about
those Bermuda-short Spearmen???"
:thinking2:

:sharky:

Heh heh, they're not just any old seashells you know....


Latest: I'm porting the "late" era on to the new map now - though it's throwing a wobbly on me, which I think I've pinned down to a unit_prod or build_prod problem, then there are a few cosmetic changes on the MapTex and that should be finished. Then I need to give the "bonus campaign" a final once-over and then Version2 will be ready for release. I'm going to be off work this weekend, so hope to make a final push - unfortunately I've also got a leaking drain to fix in my kitchen, so time could be at a premium. I must prioritise - I can carry on washing up my dishes in the bath if need be :laugh4: :laugh4:

[axel]

Hi mate
i love your mod i am playing as the hellens, got one question do are the no imortals in it?? i thought the persians made an army of 10.000 imortals :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel - there are no immortals because there's no Persian Empire yet - the game ends in 700BC when Greece is still in the Geometric/Archaic eras, ie about 150-200 years before the Persian Empire. Right now the Medes are still way off the edge of the map and probably not even looking at Assyria in a funny way yet (well, there's still the Neo-Babylonian empire in between which still has to rise and fall before Persia comes along ~D )

I made a bit more progress over the weekend, in between taking my kitchen apart :no: The "Late" era now works on the new map as well (and the problem turned out to be one of my favourites - tradegoods declared as a resource, DOH! How many times have I done that now?)

I've found out exactly how the "hero portraits" work now, so my historical heroes can have appropriate pics when they exist. I also didn't know before that a "historical hero" can crop up in a loyalist uprising if the faction hasn't "trained" him yet. The heroes I'm working on are mostly for the expansion campaign and the list is growing quite nicely - should add a bit of flavour, I hope. I still have a few tweaks to do on that scenario, as the economy isn't quite right - a lot of the minor factions tend to starve to death after being smothered by a surfeit of princes. It makes them interesting for a human player though, some of them being very tough.

Assuming I get my kitchen back together soon, I hope there'll be a new release in the next few days....

[western2]

Hi Macsen

I'd really appreciate your advice on something. While waiting for the bonus campaign (and partly inspired by it) I've been trying my hand at shifting some provinces in the old vanilla map. I've got it all working except I can't move province names. If I add anything to Maptex (using "add text" in ultimatepaint) the game crashes when I then load it, and I haven't even attempted deleting old names. Am I missing something really simple? Do I need a different programme?

Any thoughts most welcome. This is kind of frustrating:wall:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Western2 (is that Western, too ~D?)

I guess the likeliest problem would be the file format when you resave your MapTex. That image could be absolutely anything so long as the format and size are correct (so yes, if you wanted your favourite post from the Babe Thread as your map background, it would work :laugh4: ). And the other thing is that you need to have the MapTex2 which is a 4096x3152 (IIRC) copy of the MapTex. I normally use Photoshop for my actual editing, and this saves to the correct TGA format - MTW needs it to be in 24-bit, RGB mode. I don't know what UP does to the image - I do have it, originally got it for LBMs, but found it's easier to use GDS and Mithel ImageConverter for making LBMs, but never tried it for TGAs.

So, first check-list:
1) make sure you have the high and low-res versions of your map,
2) make sure you're saving your TGAs as 24-bit colour depth

If it still doesn't work come back tomorrow :2thumbsup:

EDIT: one final thought - does UP add the text as a new layer, in which case you may need to merge layers or flatten the image first, or do it as some sort of "attachment" to the file?

[ULC]

Good top see it progressing Mascen! Hurry up though, I have a CD I'd like to burn your mod too! ...did I say that out loud?!

Hey whats GDS? UP gives me headaches, main reason I use PSP, so an alternative program to both would be nice :2thumbsup: .

[axel]

Ok thx mate:2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Hi YLC - GDS stands for Graphics Display System, which is a very clunky DOS-shell based utility with a rather involved installation process that can save files in the correct LBM format for MTW use, so it can convert from pretty much any graphics format into LBM and vice-versa of course (ie gif, jpg, BMP, TGA etc etc). I really only use it for conversion, but it's great for saving things like battle icons, it CAN do LUKUPMAPs (but my machine screams about virtual memory requirements :laugh4: ) and when I get around to it, the battle-map preview pics. It's a shareware thing, that claims to only work for 30-days, but I'm on 100 days plus by now and it still keeps chugging along. The only limit really is it will only "see" 25 files in a directory (so I keep a special directory called "Conversion" into which I save all my BMPs, then open up GDS and convert them to 256 colour LBMs in one session). Oh, and being DOS based it can of course only cope with 8-letter filenames, so you'd better get used to FEUDAL~1, FEUDAL~2, FEUDAL~3 sort of file names :laugh4:

To be honest, I now use Mithel ImageConverter for LUKUPMAPs, which is perfect for that job, once you get a correct colour palette saved for reloading. I stick with GDS for the small items though, as Mithel needs to be opened afresh for each file you do - I can email you a copy of GDS if you want to try it out, I received my copy from R'as al Ghul, so glad to share it further (just PM me your add if you want it). It's fine with XP, but Vista I don't know about. It goes back to the 1990s (truly an "Ancient" tool ~D), but then again the LBM format is old and obscure itself.

Version 2.0 release should be soon - I discovered another couple of things that need tweaking last night, then I shall make a start on the new installer (including easy, bite-size chunks for dial-up users).

[western]

Thanks Macsen. That was just the help I needed:2thumbsup: Downloaded a trial version of photoshop and it worked great. Now the next challenge - what is the weird font used on the map and where can I find it?? Again, all help much appreciated:yes:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Western,

Glad that helped - as for the font, I haven't found out what it is - I did start doing a "cut-n-paste" alphabet from the map, but that got rather long-winded ~D Then I had another idea, but that's under wraps til the expansion comes out :beam:

[axel]

found a great link mate scroll down on this maybe you cane use somme thing from it
http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~perlman/myth/images/euro.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Europa.html&h=412&w=390&sz=48&hl=nl&start=491&um=1&tbnid=9IyxhXL-eDJMxM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfree%2Bancient%2Bmaps%2Beurope%2Bempires%26start%3D480%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D 1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

[macsen rufus]

Thanks for that, Axel, I shall have a longer look at it at lunchtime :2thumbsup:

For the main business of the day:

:balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2: VERSION 2 is now available for download :balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2:

The DOWNLOADS STICKY has the updated link. I will soon have a 5-part installation in bite-sized pieces for dial-up users hosted on rapidshare, and these links will be added as each section is uploaded.

The new bonus campaign is included in the full V2.0 install, but is optional for the "dial up" package - the first four parts will give the first three eras. Of course, there's nothing to stop you getting the install in parts from rapidshare even if you don't have dial-up ~D

[axel]

cool mate

must i install it over the first on mate? or do i need a fresh MTW with VI?

[macsen rufus]

It is intended to go on to MTW:VI but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work if you put it over your first install - it won't be save game compatible though, so if you do this, finish your campaign first :laugh4: And you should also delete your "startpos" files (although I can't quite remember now, they might have the same names, in which case no need to delete the old ones....)

[axel]

where do i find the startpost files???? mate

[macsen rufus]

They're in "Campmap/Startpos" and there will be three .txt files with names like 'ancient_early.txt' or similar.

[amarok]

This is awesome news!!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much for being dial-up friendly!

I hope it wasn't too much extra work - but hopefully it makes all the great work you've done available to more people.

Can't wait to download and play!!!

MTW LIVES!!!!!!!

Thank you again.

- Amarok

[amarok]

Sorry if this is a stupid question :-)

I'm just noticing the install instructions look a little different...

If I remember earlier versions said install over MTW:VI WITH XL mod (- or XL Lite version) or something like that... (meaning you needed VikingHorde's mod first as a base)

while the new instructions say just over MTW: VI 2.01 - meaning a patched Original version of the game (WITHOUT XL)

Am I right that XL is no longer requried?

Thanks!
and sorry for my confusion.

- Amarok

[axel]

hi mate i think you will love this site there a lot of shields with symbols on it

[axel]

oooops sry forgot the link :
http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=https://img211.imageshack.us/img211/7181/shields54050024up.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/forum/ancient-macedonian-history/60-macedonian-symbols.html&h=425&w=510&sz=18&hl=nl&start=1&um=1&tbnid=mv0PX6Ad277tAM:&tbnh=109&tbnw=131&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Bkingdom%2Bsymbols%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DG

[western]

Nice work Macsen! :2thumbsup:
I was wrong about the bonus campaign - but it's good to be surprised. Downloaded really quickly and it is playing great so far.

Amarok - Macsen may not be on line till Monday, so let me say yes, no need for XL.

[Xehh II]

How do I install this with XL?

[macsen rufus]

Morning all, and thanks for stepping into the breach Western :bow: Alas, due to the general suckiness of RL and my inadequate employers, I am 'working' another Saturday :laugh4:

But yes, it is quite correct - XL is no longer necessary as there is a new campaign map. The XL install was only required to secure the map, so it can be left out quite safely. If you already have it in place on your "spare" copy, it shouldn't interfere, the install will be exactly the same, almost everything will be overwritten. The only thing I can think of that you may need to do is remove the original campmap/reviewpanel/units/pagan, and .../units/orthodox sub-folders - this is not a functional issue, it just means you will get the XL version of shamans and orthodox priests in the training parchment.


I hope it wasn't too much extra work - but hopefully it makes all the great work you've done available to more people.



It probably took me about half an hour to split it up into little chunks, of which 25 minutes was just watching the progress bar on InstallCreator :laugh4: A very small investment in time to reach a wider audience. I'm glad Rapidshare is working out okay, it opens up a lot more bandwidth, and it means I earn Rapidshare bonus points towards a premium account - only 9999 more downloads to go for my first 30 free days :laugh4:

Already 9 full downloads done from mydatabus in less than 24 hours, so there must have been a few folks waiting for the new release :bow:

Hope you're all enjoying the new maps.

@Western - I wonder which campaign you're on - I'm guessing you'll be in the middle east somewhere ~D

[Xehh II]

Are these parts .exe's? 'Cos I'm useless at anything that's not, man, you should've seen me trying to get morrwind mods to work but that's not the point.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Xehh - yes, they're all .exe files, all to be installed from the same place, so it's no more difficult than doing the full install four (or five) times over :2thumbsup: Once you've prepared your MTW copy, they just load into the new Total War directory. The installer will look for a folder called "Ancient TW", so as long as you rename your copy before running installers they should find it without any more help.

[axel]

Hi mate
I love the bonus campain its great are the any elepfants in it? i hope so
its really nice mate :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Hephalumps in Carthage only, you need a colony and top horse-breeder :2thumbsup:

[western]

Hi Macsen

Strangely enough, I have barely visited the Middle East yet - too busy with the bonus campaign, which I think is great. I hadn't really thought of the Punic war period as a good scenario basis, but turns out that it is :2thumbsup: I really like those Roman skins and the map is just the right scale - and the dependence on naval movement makes the whole thing a bit less predictable, with some realistic turns of fortune.

No crashes or bugs found. I did find the AI was spamming assassins and that rebellions in former Carthaginian provinces seemed to be peopled entirely by slingers. But those were small things easily fixed.

Congrats Macsen on a really excellent piece of work - and that's before I start on those new map Assyrians!

[axel]

Hi mate
Its like western said its a really excellent piece of work i am playing the carthago faction no bugs so far the bonus campain is really excellent
good job mate :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi mate
Well i played the punicwar till the end AD354 , it wos really a great game
cane i ask : is it possible to make it play more years i did nt have enough time to play with the elepfants i only hade 10 years but it take me 6 years to train them the time wos to short for me
this campain wos so great that I played this campain in 1 day all day :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

[dimitrios the samian]

Howdy Macsen and all other players here ,, been a while since i played any thing on my PC so i decided to have a quick peek here ,, Wow !! you certainly have brought this along nicely Mac ,, Whats the new campaign map contain ? Is it the Mesopotamian region ? expanding into Pakistan & India ? .. :idea2: ,, Looks like i'll be adding a new bigger harddrive real soon ,, cheers .D

[macsen rufus]

You can all blame Adrian Goldsworthy for the bonus campaign, it was largely inspired by his book "The Fall of Carthage" :2thumbsup: You know how it is, you read a history book with one eye on the text and the other on "Hmm, how could I get this to work in MTW?" :laugh4: The other side of the equation was that there were still animations from HTW that hadn't been used anywhere else in Ancient (like the artillery and elephants - the Roman units had already seen light as their Etruscan precursors, though :beam: ) Put those together and well, you just have to have a Punic Wars campaign ~D

Glad you're enjoying the Punic Wars, and thanks for the feedback - I think there could well be a patch due, as I discovered in the course of my Moabite campaign that I'd missed off the sea-region borders in the Black Sea on the main campaign map (yes, I have got that far :2thumbsup: Let's hear it for the 'one-province wonders' :balloon2: :clown: :balloon2: ).

Interesting notes about the rebel mix in Iberia, Western - that definitely needs looking at in the unit prod. I think the "slinger spam" is sorted in the main campaign, so I just need to check over the Punic units "rebel mix". There should really be more caetratii, scutarii and cavalry showing up there, I think :yes:

@Axel: I'm not sure exactly how long it takes to tech up to elephants, but really they should be available by the time Hannibal Barca appears, shouldn't they? Maybe we need an "elephant trader" building. I also wonder whether Epirus should be allowed elephants as they were used by Pyrrhus (although he's dead by the time the game starts, of course, slain by a roof tile or chamber pot depending on your sources :beam: )

Hi, DTS, good to see you back! The new map for the main campaign is still the same area, but with the provinces re-allocated a bit, with more in the Middle East, and fewer in NW Europe. So Egypt now has Kemet + Thebes, there's a new province of "Tehenu" between Egypt and Libya, Moab and Ammon are included*, Asia Minor has been redrawn to make Arzawa more true to life, with Lycia and Ilios included as well. And Greece has been split into Hellas + Makedon, there's also a couple of small changes in Iberia so Castile no longer has a coastline, and Navarre butts on to Leon. Finally, the Black Sea has been split into three parts, and there's a new sea region for the "Phoenician Coast" which makes the eastern Med more interesting for naval ops and trade routes. And the background map has had a few changes, like old province names and land-bridges removed.

* Ammon and Moab are also available as factions as well as provinces - Moab only in Late, Ammon in high & late.

I'm not making any promises yet, but I have a new base map I'm looking at which extends from Greece through to Iran, but it looks a bit too big. But time will tell ~D

Already 44 downloads :balloon2:

[axel]

Hi mate
elephant trader" building. would be great :2thumbsup:

(I'm not making any promises yet, but I have a new base map I'm looking at which extends from Greece through to Iran, but it looks a bit too big. But time will tell)this would be great campain :yes: :yes: :yes: :yes: :yes:

[macsen rufus]

OK, elephant trader it is :2thumbsup:

Anyone tried the smaller factions yet? Must say I was very happy to discover how many Greek cities had a role in the general era, lots of excuses to plaster various parts of the map with hoplites of various types. In testing I particularly enjoyed Syracuse and the Masiliotes, though the AI tends to struggle with Syracuse, to such an extent that I've never seen their one and only hero emerge under AI control (no prizes for guessing who ~D).

Also now I'm able to sit down and play out a campaign on the new main map, I'm finding Western Europe is developing quite differently. Whereas originally it tended to be pretty stable, I find all the empires ebbing and flowing. The big surprise is that the Ligurians have a good grip across France and northern Spain, and after getting beaten back to their island once, the Prytani are resurgent. The Phrygians wiped out Assyria quite early, and I had to let them have a princess just to keep from getting gobbled up myself (I still only had a couple of provinces then, and they were getting BIG). Now I've managed to push them back into the steppe provinces, where there's a huge war going on between Phrygians, Cimmerians, Balts, Slavs and Thracians. The Illyrians and Italics seem to be having bit of a long-drawn out match as well, with the border moving up and down Italy like a yo-yo. The poor Etruscans have been pushed westwards into old Ligurian lands where they can't raise their top-notch heavy infantry. The Iberians are clinging on the southern Spain, but the Iberocelts have been displaced and now have Aquitaine! The map changes seem to have livened things up a bit :2thumbsup:

Still, they will all fall before the might of Moab :laugh4:

[ULC]

Not to get to far into this, but after actually looking at the stats for the units in ATW, I have to say I am confused. Negative charge? In fact, LOTS of negative stats. It may be presumptious to ask, but why?

[Xehh II]

Well, I finally got some time on my hands so i'm going to try downloading it now. I'll let you know how it goes. I founs ouyt so9mething disturbing, I have to wait an hour between downloading each part, that kind of sucks.

[dimitrios the samian]

Hey Mac ,, Well done !! Flesh out that map from Greece and all the way to Pakistan&India and don't pull it up at just Iran & the glory that was Assyria & Babylon + Persia & The Diadochi is all open for adventure !!!
* Im clearing space on my HD as i speak *
cheers
D

[macsen rufus]

@YLC - The negative values are an HTW legacy - except my own new ones, most of the units keep the exact same stats as were used in HTW, which were all worked out a lot more ... systematically than I have done. The balance on HTW was finely honed, whereas I've tended to interpolate and extrapolate in the absence of a certain legendary tool I can't locate (a spreadsheet snuck out of the CA labs one dark and dreadful night ~D). Effectively, you have a range on all stats from -20 to +20 - so I guess once you set a baseline unit, and then start introducing weaker ones, you have to go into the negative to portray them. In short, if you just work up from zero you instantly lose half of the available range.

Or look at it another way - some units are so crap all they achieve by charging is tripping over each other and skewering themselves on the enemy's weapons more effectively :laugh4:

(I prefer the second explanation, it makes me feel less nerdy ~D)

Hi Xehh - I guess that's to stop abuse, or to persuade you to purchase a premium account. Back in the days when I still depended on dial up I had about five different accounts I could use (a personal one, a family one, my partner's personal one, one associated with the organisation we worked for, and one associated with a publication we edited - any nonsense like waiting between downloads was quickly circumvented :beam: ) Ah, the joys of dynamic IP addresses ....

and DTS - well, I was thinking about a possible Alexander campaign/Persian Empire sort of scenario, plus Diadochi - another excuse to use the elephants :clown: And most of the other units needed will be covered by the HTW roster - Indian troops would be more difficult, though. If I can face the long hard slog of a pixel-by-pixel alteration of 12 frames of 16 figures each, I might be able to edit a bif animation to make a new model, but I'm sure you can see why I'm hesitant on that for now :yes:

Another thought is a close-in Mesopotamian camaign - Ur, Uruk, Babylon, Susa et al, maybe going back further - however research is going to be difficult for say 2500BC....

In between I'll take a break from MTW and give Europa Barbarorum a go, I've got the downloads ready and waiting to be installed, but I'll need to change video drivers to run it, so it won't happen til Ancient is in a stable form awaiting the next big upgade to V3.0 :2thumbsup:

[Xehh II]

Well, I've just played a little bit a of it and I must say I think I like this mod better than XL, there's one thing that bugs me though, is the lack of Unit Descriptions, in the next version(if you make a next version) would you add the descriptions for units that don't have them yet? Because I always used UD to figure out what the units are good for but without them I get confused.
I haven't got the Extra campaign yet, i'll probably get it in the morning, could you tell me what's in it though?

[macsen rufus]

Hi Xehh, glad you finally managed to get it :2thumbsup:

Ah, yes, the unit descriptions.... okay, I'll admit it - they all (well most) need an overhaul for various reasons. Some are HTW hangovers which just need a bit of grammatical correction (don't think any of the HTW team were native English speakers, so I forgive them :beam: And some of them are too long for the parchment, so will need cutting down a bit), others are just placeholders I've been too lazy to go back to (ie nothing more than the unit's name), and some need a bit more 'colour'.

The extra campaign is the Punic Wars, opens in 270BC (ie five years before Rome and Carthage first went to war historically) and ends in 146BC, the year Carthage was sacked. Factions include the obvious: Rome and Carthage, Celts (I should rename them as Gauls, I guess...), Iberians, Celt-Iberians, Numidians plus a few lesser / more remote ones: Illyrians, Epirotes, Antigonid Macedonia, Syracuse, Masilia, Achaean league. That should give a good mix of army styles, everything from the pike phalanx to legions to the hordes of screaming barbarians ~D

Recruitment is very geographical - ie most factions can raise mercenary hoplites in Greek cities, Iberians in Iberia, Numidians in North Africa etc. To give some idea of the scale of the map, Mauretania is to the southwest, the northern border just shows the south coast of Britain (not playable) and the eastern border just shows the western tip of Crete (also not playable, but do not fear - Cretan archers are for hire with ports for the right factions in the right places). The provinces are largely redrawn, one benefit of "zooming" into one corner of the usual MTW map.

* Sicily is now Lilybaeum, Messana and Syracuse
* Italy has Latium, Campania, Apulia, Samnium, Picenum, Etruria, Bruttium, Gallia Cispadana, Gallia Transpadana and Gallia Cisalpina
* Greece is Achaea, Aetolia, Macedonia and Epirus
* Spain has Baetica, Lusitania, Oretania, Saguntum, Carthago Nova, Ilergetia, Vasconia, Cantabria, Numantia, Asturia, Galicia, Emporion and Vacceia - plus the Balearic Islands (for those all important slingers :2thumbsup: )

The sea regions have also been seriously overhauled - you now need at least four ships to protect all of Sicily from invasion, for instance.

Plus there's a range of historical heroes, including the obvious two - Hannibal Barca and Publius Cornelius Scipio.

Needless to say there are new units - Numidian cavalry, Iberian cavalry, and Equites amongst the cavalry, and for infantry there are mercenary hoplites, falxmen, scutarii, caetratii, gaesatae, Celtic nobles and Samnite auxilia.

And from HTW: Xistophoroi hippeis, Companions, Thessalian cavalry, Macedonian pike phalanx, Yficratian phalanx, Thracian romfeoforoi and peltasts, and numerous other hoplite types, plus the artillery and elephants.

That should convince you that you can face another DL session :2thumbsup:

[Xehh II]

That Extra Campaign sounds awesome, I'm really looking forward to downloading it.

[axel]

Hi mate
Last night i started to play the celts after a fue turns (about 15) i wanted to attack a french region (a rebel region) on the moment that the battle field came on my game freezed and my PC rebooted i dont know of this is a problem of my PC or sommething with the game so i dont know if somme one have the samme problem but this is the first time it ever happend. but i started the campain again ill let you know if it happens again.

Here a fue more links:
http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bible-history.com/assyria_archaeology/tiglath_pilesar_iii_army_gazru.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bible-history.com/assyria_archaeology/archaeology_of_ancient_assyria_archaeological_discoveries.html&h=293&w=300&sz=65&hl=nl&start=46&um=1&tbnid=qf6W_7AjtgY6JM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Barmy%2Bs%26start%3D40%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/e/ec/280px-Macedonian_Army_Pezetairos.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.answers.com/topic/ancient-macedonian-army&h=333&w=280&sz=21&hl=nl&start=83&um=1&tbnid=6AVJ-byUz57R9M:&tbnh=119&tbnw=100&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Barmy%2Bs%26start%3D80%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/3/3e/300px-GM_Massinissa.png&imgrefurl=http://www.answers.com/topic/masinissa&h=300&w=300&sz=102&hl=nl&start=149&um=1&tbnid=p0wErXfYsChnEM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Barmy%2Bs%26start%3D140%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

Here s a map for your new campain:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd/macedonian_empire_336_323.jpg

[axel]

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/images/Army1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/WarTech.htm&h=290&w=648&sz=44&hl=nl&start=607&um=1&tbnid=tTRUf4Kcy9SrAM:&tbnh=61&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Barmy%2Bs%26start%3D600%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.biblepicturegallery.com/Thumbs/pa/World/armies/Bowman%2520in%2520Sennacheribs%2520army%25208th%2520to%25207th%2520century%2520BC.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.biblepicturegallery.com/pictures/AssyrianA.htm&h=120&w=160&sz=6&hl=nl&start=821&um=1&tbnid=m0xSUKdqwfmsjM:&tbnh=74&tbnw=98&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Barmy%2Bs%26start%3D820%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mcbridecollectors.com/mcbrid1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mcbridecollectors.com/&h=265&w=377&sz=44&hl=nl&start=3&um=1&tbnid=cNrWUA-i57ZNnM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=122&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Barmies%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl

http://blog.pierrickauger.fr/__oneclick_uploads/2007/07/osprey-men-at-arms-109-ancient-armies-of-the-middle-east_page_47_image_0001.jpg

http://blog.pierrickauger.fr/__oneclick_uploads/2007/07/osprey-men-at-arms-109-ancient-armies-of-the-middle-east_page_49_image_0001.jpg

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/map3a.gif

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/AncientMacedonia/images/alex_army1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/AncientMacedonia/AlexandertheGreat.html&h=173&w=280&sz=25&hl=nl&start=400&um=1&tbnid=B5UhWFNTZKgSNM:&tbnh=70&tbnw=114&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Barmies%26start%3D380%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.iranchamber.com/history/parthians/images/parthian_army.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.iranchamber.com/history/parthians/parthian_army.php&h=500&w=660&sz=61&hl=nl&start=134&um=1&tbnid=lgGmSIz7DUSy9M:&tbnh=105&tbnw=138&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Barmies%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2Bmiddle%2Beast%26start%3D120%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26 um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

http://www.carelinks.net/books/lp/images/image012.jpg

http://www.morainevalley.edu/ctl/MiddleEast/images/Map_Early%20Islamic%20Expansion.jpg

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00maplinks/early/darius/mollmap1764.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00maplinks/early/darius/darius.html&h=720&w=1028&sz=175&hl=nl&start=13&um=1&tbnid=5QH2oPjU0sw6uM:&tbnh=105&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Bpersian%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DX

http://www.crystalinks.com/persian_empiremap.gif

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y237/aryamehr11/Ancient%2520Iranian%2520Soldiers/th_PersianSpearman-AchaemenianPeriod.jpg&imgrefurl=http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y237/aryamehr11/Ancient%2520Iranian%2520Soldiers/&h=160&w=120&sz=5&hl=nl&start=259&um=1&tbnid=8jTo8Ywe9AFh2M:&tbnh=98&tbnw=74&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Bpersian%26start%3D240%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

http://www.rootsweb.com/~mdeastgw/maps/persian_empire.jpg

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.forumancientcoins.com/Articles/Maps/images/Persian%2520Empire.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.forumancientcoins.com/Articles/Maps/Maps_of_the_Ancient_World.htm&h=524&w=750&sz=144&hl=nl&start=508&um=1&tbnid=wJlTDY24h0iaZM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=141&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Bpersian%26start%3D500%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson_images/EvalGraphics/PersianEmpire03.jpg

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/maps/persia.jpg

http://www.bible-history.com/maps/alexander-the-great-map.jpg

http://www.biographyshelf.com/Templates/images/Art/alexander_the_great/alexander_the_great_empire_map.jpg

http://library.thinkquest.org/10805/media/alexmap.gif

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd/macedonian_empire_336_323.jpg

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cfford/342alexander.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cfford/342worldhistoryearly.html&h=360&w=300&sz=35&hl=nl&start=80&um=1&tbnid=Di_UCRHViANA8M:&tbnh=121&tbnw=101&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dalexander%2Bthe%2Bgreat%26start%3D60%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3 DN

http://herculean.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/hellenistic-world-picture-from-house-of-ptolemy-website.gif

http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/images_n2/alexander.gif

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel - not sure why your PC rebooted - usually if it's the game it will only CTD! I haven't had anything like that myself.

Thanks for the links, nice map of Alexander's campaign/empire :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi mate
It did nt happen again all works fine at this moment :sweatdrop:
did you see this link with soldier images: http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y237/aryamehr11/Ancient%2520Iranian%2520Soldiers/th_PersianSpearman-AchaemenianPeriod.jpg&imgrefurl=http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y237/aryamehr11/Ancient%2520Iranian%2520Soldiers/&h=160&w=120&sz=5&hl=nl&start=259&um=1&tbnid=8jTo8Ywe9AFh2M:&tbnh=98&tbnw=74&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dancient%2Bpersian%26start%3D240%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN

[axel]

Hi mate
I found out that if you build more ships to make the trade more profit it only costs more money and its funest for you ecconomy is this possible mate???

[Ignoramus]

Hello macsen,

I've just download it and started my first campaign as the Etruscans in Early. The mod is very well done, and doesn't feel like the Middle Ages at all(well, the music doesn't help, but that's a minor detail).

Just a few early notes:

- I am finding that the traits "Secret Perversion", "Secret Adultery", and "Killer Instinct" appear almost all the time in my generals.

- The buildings seem very cheap; I found no difficulty staying out of debt, even on expert.

- Blitzing is a bit too easy. The poor Ligurians in my campaign didn't put up a good fight, and the Iberians have been crunched by my sea invasions.

[macsen rufus]

"Secret Perversion", "Secret Adultery", and "Killer Instinct"...

Hmmm, don't look at me, they're your generals :laugh4: No, seriously, the various factions do seem to be prone to different sets of vices, as in standard MTW. I'm finding with the Moabites at the moment they tend to keep their trousers on, but quite like the bottle. I'm still not sure what determines this, whether it's related to the starting king, or truly random as it should be. (Although I do find that in vanilla MTW it is the MUSLIM factions where I get the most "drinker" vices, so it has a sense of irony, at least).

But to be honest, that particular trio you mentioned, I often see in my royals whatever campaign I play. You know what they say, one to inherit, one for the army, one for the church etc etc - and in MTW always one to hide away in a locked basement before the neighbours see him ~D

The economy is a bit tricky, as it seems human players can handle it well, the AI with the same faction can easily get bogged down in debt and stagnates. I might be able to tweak it with the "AI buiding influences" but I haven't quite worked out the details yet...) The Etruscans do quite well economically compared to the other Pagan factions, as they have excellent resources in Etruria. Copper and tin are the most valuable trade goods available, and salt is a lot more valuable than it is in vanilla (which reminds me, there's a review panel pic I still haven't changed - HTW used the "salt" slot for "marble", so the pic's not quite right...) I'm also thinking about reducing the upgrades a bit and making military buildings reduce happiness a bit to force more selective building habits (this works really well in Napoleonic, so I'm very tempted...)

Axel - chose your ships carefully - some are surprisingly expensive in upkeep. Also bear in mind long-distance trade wasn't very common in the era - it doesn't mean goods didn't travel a long way, they did, but in a 'pass-the-parcel' sort of way, eg Baltic amber ended up in the Aegean, but it would have changed hands maybe five or ten times to get there. The most lucrative routes are in the Eastern Med, reflecting the old triangle of Ugarit/Tyre --> Crete --> Egypt which relied on the seasonal currents (this is the route the Cape Gelidonya and Ulu Burun shipwrecks of c1300BC would have been sailing - hence all the Cypriot copper ingots on board). Anway, always check the trader building's income, and prospective trading partners own resources before sending your ships further afield - there are a lot of provinces that have similar resources, to make sure you are carfeul :beam:

In keeping with the era, control of metal resources is very important both economically and militarily.

Keep up the feedback - if we get enough "tweaks" together, I can do another patch (v2.1 patch I guess) which will be save-game safe before a full v3.0 is ready (I still want more units in there ~D but new units and new buildings are not save-safe, or at least not reliably so...)

I also want to do some more battlemaps, but last night's attempt didn't work too well - trying to make a "Nile delta" map, but the palm trees came out invisible, which spoilt the effect a bit :no:

[ULC]

Just started playing as the romans in the extra campaign, and I have to say...EXCELLENT. It seems very accurate in roman infantry vs hoplite battles, with the romans dieing in droves (very historically accurate). How did you manage to get only carthage and rome to be the key for victory?

[macsen rufus]

Hi YLC - it's in the province SetAttributes - the final column is a TRUE/FALSE flag, which is whether the province is a victory condition. If you compare with the Viking startpos, you'll see that Hordaland and Jutland are the only ones set to "FALSE". This flag was new in the VI startpos, and doesn't exist in vanilla MTW. I wasn't sure it would work with so few set to true but it does :2thumbsup: You can conquer as much or as little of the map as you like (driven mostly by your desire for foreign auxilia) but the only rule is "CARTHAGO DELENDA EST!"

[Ignoramus]

Hello macsen,

I would recommend increasing the costs of buildings - at least of fortifications. At the moment, the economic aspect is not very challenging. It's good, but almost all the buildings have the same costs, which doesn't seem that realistic.

Also, perhaps the build times for more advanced structures could be increased. One thing that really made expanding a calcutated and tense affair in Medieval was the time it took to build up a province - if you lose a province, all those lovely building are going to get destroyed.

Oh, and I might have some pics for some new battlemaps you might be interested in.

[macsen rufus]

@Ignoramus - I'm intrigued re the pics - you have my email address? :2thumbsup:

I shall have a look at the building costs as well, then, for the next patch / update, probably in conjunction with the building influences for the AI. What is really needed is for the AI to get a bit smarter about the economy, but alas you can't do much about that :no:

What I still don't understand is why some factions can sit on a treasury of 10 or 20k and still train too few troops to maintain loyalty in their provinces... the Germanics in particular do this a lot, and are constantly getting knocked back by rebellions that a single unit of tribal warriors could have prevented :inquisitive:

[Xehh II]

I'm about to have a proper go at the extra campaign, what faction would you suggest.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Xehh - depends what you enjoy really - I think Carthage should be a good starter, as they have access to an interesting variety of troops, a good economic position and a few neighbours to practice on before tackling the Romans. Rome obviously has its organised legionary army, no navy to speak of, and still needs to pacify much of Italy. Both have a handful of heroes, and Rome has a good selection of offices to hand out to loyal generals ~D Oh, yes, nearly forgot - Carthage gets elephants :2thumbsup:

If you fancy being stuck between two superpowers with a small but influential Hellenistic state, give Syracuse a try, which is one of my favourite "minor" factions. It has certain - advantages :2thumbsup:

Antigonid Macedonia has some seriously good units (Macedonian pike phalanx, Companion cavalry and Thracian auxiliaries), and stuck in a corner of the map surrounded by Greeks, barbarians and rebels, has room to expand, enjoy a bit of hoplite warfare, and pick up some interesting foreign troops as well.

For a tough start, try the Achaean League. They have some good Hellenic troops, including Spartan hoplites, but are a bit cash-strapped, so will have to pick on someone bigger than themselves (ie the Antigonids) to get anywhere at all. Epirus is another Hellenistic faction which can call on some Illyrian troops, for a bit of variety.

Of the barbarian factions, the Celts (Gauls) are the biggest, and have some interesting troops - including Gallic nobles (kick-ass swordsmen mentioned earlier, complete with La Tene style shields) and Gaesatae (SCARY kick-ass swordsmen :laugh4: ). Then there are the Iberian factions, who have to deal with each other and the Carthaginians, but get some interesting troops to do it with...

Hmmm, who's left? Masilia - Hellenistic, trade based, interesting location as the most western Greeks, access to Celtic auxiliaries. Illyrians - neighbouring Celts, Antigonids and Epirus - unique roster. Numidians - excellent cavalry, a bit over-shadowed by Carthage, but few other threats. However, I think North Africa needs more unit types, so see what you think...

[Wladyslaw IV]

Does Ancient TW have a campaign map of all of Europe, similar to the extremities of vanilla MTW VI, or is it localized on any specific region?

[axel]

Hi Wladyslaw IV
both 3 all over europe campain and 1 bonus campain with almost all europe its a really really good game to play mate

[macsen rufus]

Welcome Wladyslaw IV :bow:

As Axel said, there is a whole-Europe map for the three main campaigns (1280-700BC) which is the same size as the standard MTW one but with quite a few changes to provinces and sea regions to suit the times (more provinces in the Middle East and Asia Minor, fewer in Europe proper), and the Punic Wars add-on has a dedicated map of the Western Mediterranean which covers Iberia across to Greece, and North Africa up to Southern Germany.

I shall be releasing a V2.1 patch shortly, which will be save-game safe for V2.0 games, and will address most of the V2.0 feedback so far. To be included:

* elephant trader building for Punic Wars
* higher costs for some buildings
* tweaks to AI unit preferences and rebel mix
* corrected MapTex to show the sea region borders in the Black Sea
* completed and corrected unit descriptions

The changes are done for the Punic campaign, and ready to copy across to the main ones.

I'm currently replaying the Syracusan campaign to test out the changes, and it really is one of my favourite factions :yes: It's all about choices - do I attack the Carthaginians or the Romans? You can't get far without doing one or the other :laugh4:

Ideally, the first play is to take Messana from the Mamertines, but I couldn't hold it down - too many rebellions, then when I withdrew to regroup, Carthage nabbed it, it rebelled again, eventually they used their superior numbers to crush the rebels and now have Hannibal Barca parked there with a huge stack, five stars, and and his "expert attacker" virtue (still I had to laugh when I saw he'd been "born" into a unit of Libyan spearmen ~D). To say that Tyrant Hiero IV is looking a little nervously across the border is bit of an understatement, and he had to pull troops back from the subjugation of Magna Graecia just to keep the home city feeling secure. Eventually Carthage decided to offer me an alliance (the third time - the first two broken off by me when they attacked my other allies), and we're currently carving up Italy between us. I have secured Rome, got my economy a little more stable, and now must look for lots of ships and an excuse to break the alliance so I can take Carthage, too :charge:

[macsen rufus]

:shame: I lost the Syracusan campaign :no:

Left it too late to take on the Carthaginians. If I could have parted the waves and marched my armies across the med, Carthage would have been toast, but I really underestimated their naval strength and couldn't get anywhere near Africa. Ah, well, live and learn.... still it's good to know the creation can beat the creator on occasion ~D

[Xehh II]

I'm currently playing a Carthage campaign but it's going slow, I've only taken over one province and that's the rebel african one, I've tried making an alliance with Numidia but they won't accept and I'm not about to attack Rome until I know that I'm safe at home.

[Xehh II]

Well, in my infinite stupidity, I managed to lose sicily, I started a 3 year war against Syracuse, then when I beat them back to their castle I had to retreat all forces from sicily to protect Qart-Hadast from the Numidians, I knew I should've waited for an alliance with them before I did anything else. So after spending 1000's of lives to beat the Syracusans, it's all for nothing.
I'll have to focuse on wiping out the Numidians now.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Xehh - sounds like you're on schedule with history, about time for your Mercenaries to rebel, I guess ~D Look on the bright side, once you beat the Numidians, you'll have more recruitment areas for the Numidian cavalry, then you can get back to recapturing Sicily. One tip for Carthage - I'll put it in spoilers if you'd rather not know:

NEVER LOSE CARTHAGE - you will not be able to rebuild your Colony if it is destroyed - no more Punic troops from Carthage and more seriously - no elephants :scared:

Latest news: the V2.1 patch is ready, I'm currently uploading it and will post links in the Download thread as soon as they're available.

[axel]

got it mate will install it tomorow :2thumbsup:

[Wladyslaw IV]

Great work man - bootyfull :smash:


But I can't seem to find the install instructions I found the other day. What to delete BEFORE you install, and then use the application. :inquisitive:

[macsen rufus]

@ Wladyslaw - instructions on what to delete are listed in the downloads thread, so they're easy to find :bow:

:balloon2: :balloon2: More goodies :balloon2: :balloon2:

After an unexpected day off ( to celebrate Eid - my boss is a Muslim :yes: ) I had time to do some things that I'd been wanting to do for a while, and the result is another little expansion pack:

Ancient TW V2.1 Map Pack
====================

This expansion pack adds some new battlemaps for the Ancient TW mod, with the necessary changes to the startpos files to ensure they are called up at the right time and place. It is intended to be installed after the v2.1 patch, but it should still work on a v2.0 install.

Punic Wars maps:
* Syracuse castle map set
* Carthage castle map set

I thought these two cities deserved their own maps due to the importance and difficulty of assaulting them during the Punic Wars. I've tried to make them fairly realistic representations within the limits of the MTW engine, or at least duplicate some of the major features of the historic defences and strategic problems faced by a besieging/assaulting army. Thanks again to Adrian Goldsworthy's excellent "The Fall of Carthage" :bow:

Main campaign maps:
* a fjord-style river map for the Norway/Sweden border
* a coastal river map for Kemet (Egypt)

Also an old MTW castlemap has been replaced with an HTW map of the same name to avoid embarrassing miscalculations when assaulting!

As ever, the link is in the download thread (Rapidshare, only 1.6MB)

I'm particularly pleased with the "fjord" map, but have to admit that Slartibartfast was a greater genius than I ~D

For the first time ever I was beaten as the Germanics when trying to take Norway from the rebels, and it makes for some interesting tactical options, for both attackers and defenders. Enjoy :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi mate
Where cane i find the Ancient TW V2.1 Map Pack ? how do i install it?
I am playing the romans at this point in punic campain i love it, any change maybe that there be a punic campain with the hole MTW europe map so the brittains and the danes (european tribes) cane join would love to play this campain for 400 or 500 years your units mate i love them:2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: is it possible?

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel - map pack link is in the "Downloads" thread - all new links go in there as soon as they are available. It's built into an installer so it's the same procedure as the main install & the patch, point at your Ancient TW folder and click :2thumbsup:

I don't have any plans for a full-Europe map for this era, as the whole point was to concentrate on the Punic Wars, and that's why I cut the map off to exclude Britain and the Germanic tribes etc etc. To do the full map would sort of turn it into "Europa Barbarorum Lite", and would involve lots of unit reforms etc etc if the time scale was extended. And loads of new units would be required - the next Ancient project is likely to be either:

* ancient Mesopotamia (2500BC, King Sargon, Akkad, Babylon, Susa, Elam etc etc)
* Alexander the Great campaign with map out towards India
or
* Diadochi (Wars of the Successors)

Although the last two would need the same campaign map, so might as well be counted as one, really ~D

But either way, not likely to be finished before 2008...

[dimitrios the samian]

Yeehaa !!!!!!!!!! .... Tigris & Euphrates here we come !! :beam:
To Macsen & Axel many thanks guys Ive just reinstalled & patched upto 2.1 and getting the old memory banks reconnecting ,, Been a long time since Ive stared over a battlefield and I had to make up a hot key card .
Macsen - Looks like an easy install and it will be done in the next 24hrs , I will be reporting back my progress .
Axel - Thanks for the mail out and keep an eye on your box for some goodies coming your way .

[macsen rufus]

Yeehaa !!!!!!!!!! .... Tigris & Euphrates here we come !!

Good to see you back, Dimitrios, thought that would flush you out of the woodwork :laugh4: :laugh4:

It's going to be a while down the road yet, but I have one good base map for the larger scenario, but haven't found much yet for details of Mesopotamia, at least I want good maps of the rivers which will be very important, and the locations of the major cities.

Meanwhile I'm going to get on and do some research, and have a dabble with EB :beam:

Let us know how you get on with the 2.1 campaigns....

[axel]

dimitrios the samian i am glad you got it mate have fun :2thumbsup:
macsen rufus dose campains would be great :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:
i am looking forward to it.
Do you need help in any way ??? maybe i cane help

[axel]

Hi mate
question: isnt there any way to make the time longer then 125 years mate?

[dimitrios the samian]

:whip: .. Then lets cross the Zagros and on into the Hindu-Kush !! :laugh4:
Seriously Mac - You deserve a well deserved break and enjoy your time on EB (( Europa Barbarorum ? )) when you feel the need to begin im sure us boys here will supply you with enough info to succeed in your next mod .
I'll be trying out Urartu first , only cause I need to turtle along , but at the same token I will be playing a lot of custom battles .
Q ? - Can historical battles be made for the mod ?
Axel if i run into any trouble installing I'll pm you so Mac gets a break .
cheers guys
DTS

[macsen rufus]

Morning all :bow:

@Axel - if you want to extend the game you'd need to open the Punic campaign startpos file (I think it's called Punic_57_26.txt) in the campmap/startpos folder, then change the entry for SetGameEndDate (or something like that, I don't have a copy in front of me right now) which is fairly close to the top. It will only affect new campaigns, once a campaign has been started you cannot extend it. (What would be really cool would be a cheat code for "Add ten years" or something, the same way as you can raise your treasury to 1,000,000 Fl, for instance :yes: )

@DTS - I'm afraid custom battles are a bit buggy, yet - I haven't really sorted out why - some work, but most crash. Historical battles should be possible, but I haven't done any, as they need triggers and victory conditions to be scripted, and I suspect that they probably won't work until the custom battle side is sorted out. One day I intend to do Kadesh, at least :beam: and the Punic campaign gives lots of opportunities (Telamon, Cannae, Lake Trasimene, Zama...) Urartu is a good choice for turtling, as you have to, else you will be snuffed out in the first couple of years. But they have a great defensive roster, and I love the Cascan warband. Used well, they are Urartu's not-so-secret weapon, and Urartu has some good "heavies" (spears and cav) and mineral wealth to exploit.

I was trying out a couple of ideas last night and for the Punic campaign I've added barbarian pikes and a dedicated Celtic chariot (covignos) which is a cut above the usual tribal chariots - better stats, and they scare hastati - I've removed the tribal chariot from the scenario, as really only Celts were using chariots this late. I think the Ligurian chariot should also be replaced by a Ligurian cavalry unit, too, so only Celts (including Celtiberians) have any chariots at all. The next question is, can we justify superior Celtic chariots in the main campaign?

[dimitrios the samian]

All loaded and sampled .. Ok Custom Battles worked ok for me , i had 4 off them & noticed strange rosters ,, eg Rhodian Slingers appearing in Celt slots and other similiar ones with Greek troops appearing in Assyrian slots etc etc .
I started a Hellene campaign and played about 15 yrs worth , addictive so far , took Macedon after a few years then ventured into Thracian territory . Just getting into the feel of it again so I will report back on how this one develops .
I will start a Urartan one tommorow ...I just love those hopeless single territory challenges .
cheers DTS

[axel]

Hi mate
is there a limit to change the end date and will it give me problems with the game and the mod???
is it this wot i most change??? :
//========================================
//Start Date
//The year in which this
//campaign will begin
//========================================

SetStartDate:: 230
SetPeriod:: LATE
SetEarlyPeriodStartDate:: 100 // 400BC
SetHighPeriodStartDate:: 150 // 350BC
SetLatePeriodStartDate:: 230 // 265BC
SetGameEndDate:: 354 // 146BC

so i think i most change 354 to lets say 400 or 450 ?
a lot of questions sorry for that mate :shame: i am just learning


dimitrios the samian if you need help just PM me and ill help you in any way i cane :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi
i asked this before on forum about changing money for units see :
Originally Posted by axel
pericles hi mate cane you explane how you cane chance the money to more and where you cane chance it ????i like to give somme factions more money


Hi :)

Here is how to give other factions more florins. It's very easy.

Here's how:

1) Go to this directory in your MTW game:

C:\Program Files\Total War\Medieval - Total War\campmap\startpos

2) Before you make any changes, make copies of all the original text files you see in this folder. This way you can revert back to the original files any time you like. Now open the file for the era you want to play (such as Early_XL, High_XL, etc). In this example, open the "High_XL" text file.

3) Now scroll down until you see this section below. As you can see, the amount of florins given to each faction is listed according to difficulty such as EASY, NORMAL, HARD and EXPERT. In the example below, I have selected to play on HARD (the third column) and have decided to play the Crusader faction. I gave myself 10,000 florins and gave all other factions 50,000 florins.

//========================================
//Starting Treasury
//Sets the amount of cash available to
//each faction at the start of the game.
//you can specify 4 values for the four
//difficulty levels in the order EASY,
//NORMAL, HARD and EXPERT. Specify only one
//value to start all difficulty levels with
//the same size treasury.
//If you don't set this, the default
//is 2000 florins for all difficulty levels.
//========================================
SetTreasury:: FN_ALMOHAD 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_BYZANTINE 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_DANISH 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_EGYPTIAN 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_ENGLISH 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_FRENCH 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_GERMAN_HRE 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_ITALIAN 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_POLISH 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_RUSSIAN 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_SPANISH 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_TURKISH 10000 8000 50000 4000

SetTreasury:: FN_ARAGONESE 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_BULGARIANS 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_GOLDEN_HORDE 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_HUNGARIAN 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_NOVGOROD 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_PAPIST 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_SICILIAN 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_PORTUGAL 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_CUMANS 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_CRUSADERS 10000 8000 10000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_TEUTONIC 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_LITHUANIANS 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_VOLGA 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_SCOTS 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_SERBS 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_ARMENIANS 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_SWEDISH 10000 8000 50000 4000
SetTreasury:: FN_GENOANS 10000 8000 50000 4000


4) Once you have inputted the amounts you want, save the text file, exit and then play your game.

5) You can do this for ALL eras in the game, for any mod, or for the vanilla game. Just remember to FIRST select the faction you want to play, THEN give all other factions more florins. You can give other factions as little as 10000 florins or as much as 2000000 (2 million). DON'T use commas to separate the numbers. This is a very effective way to increase the difficulty level for very little effort.

is this also possible in Acient if so maybe it helps :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

@Axel - the only problems with dates are: if you START before 40AD the start kings will be unmarried and risk having messed-up ages like -65000 years, and if you run anywhere in the "vanilla" game range (actually 1066-1453) then the "historic events" such as inventions and famopus people crop up and spoil the effect. Also with Punic, the action is all in LATE - if you let EARLY or HIGH happen it will break it big-time.

Would recommend you don't fiddle with starting treasuries - if you give any factions more money it will make it too easy for the human. It's especially set so that Rome and Carthage have deep pockets at the start, and to keep the minor factions minor.

[dimitrios the samian]

Hi Mac ,, Enjoying the Urartan campaign immensely ,, It is difficult ive almost wiped out the phyrgians and after some more building i'll go after the Cimmerians in the north , lucky theAssyrians are allied with me so if i last long enough i'll hit the hittites eventually too ,, but thats some time away still .. more later ......

[macsen rufus]

@DTS - glad you like Urartu; let's hear it for the boys in turquoise and gold :balloon2:

I usually end up fighting the Phrygians first, as well. Either they attack me - in which case some fun defensive battles trying to get their cav to fight my cascans in the woods ~D; otherwise they attack someone else, in which case I make a grab for Casca itself. The Cimmerians are best left until you have the UHAs rolling out, preferably with the weapon upgrades from Urartu's copper deposits, then you're properly equipped to sweep out of the mountains into the open steppes.... Taking on the Neo-Hittites requires quite a heavy army, as those Hittite spearmen can be TOUGH little beggars... ah, I'm getting nostalgic for that little corner of the map again... :beam:

I've started a new early Celtic campaign to test out some new units - I have decided to carry the covignos unit across to the main campaign, and have spread the tribal pikes around a few factions - I'm looking for a bit more barbarian diversity to expand the rosters a bit, so the Celts will get their own pike unit ("mataris" being Celtic for pike). Although I like the tribal spears, I get a bit irritated when the AI decides to skirmish with them. Admittedly they are quite impetuous and will charge, I'm not sure whether they go in to engage at will or hold formation mode for the AI. Hence the pikes, which are tougher and will deploy in hold formation by default. Some factions, I think, will end up with pikes and a javelin unit, but no tribal spears.

I've also been wondering about what we can add to the northeast of the map, as currently the Balts are about the most "generic" faction, with nothing special to recruit. So Baltic axes, Baltic skirmishers (there's a lot of archaeological evidence of javelins - including bone and flint heads, so some variety :2thumbsup: ), and possibly a token "Uralian warband" to represent those tribes the Balts pushed out/subsumed. The Baltic axes I was thinking would be elite, and replace the tribal swordsmen for the Balts.

Also what do you guys think about the tribal hunters - I'm wondering whether they should be upped to a 30-man unit?

And then I also want to check out the custom battle entries in the unit prods, get some sense of order into the faction rosters for that side of things. It'd make testing units easier if custom battles were more reliable ~D

And Axel - thanks for the links - I'm working my way through them, but I've already got some new infopics from them :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi mate
Ok i dont wont to mess up this mod so ill will do NO changes becose i would kill my self if i cant play this mod :skull: its only, its hard to build everything in 125 years mate there are so many nice things to build but they take time and money.
Tribal hunters i love them allreddy :2thumbsup:
i am glad i got help if you need more info just tell me wot you need ill find it

[dimitrios the samian]

:sweatdrop: .. You are dead right Mac ,, I made the mistake spread myself thin and those Phyrgians came back at me real hard !! Aaahh .. I im loving this mod .
I have V2 thanks to Axel .. Does the patch add names to the territories on the map ?
I also like many of those pretty princesses :yes: ..but ive seen some absolute horrors :skull: .death warmed up ! no way would one of my boys marry them .
Which folder are the Assyrian & Urartan princesses in ? Im gonna start using those utilities .... (( i'll keep you posted on my developments ))
cheers for now back in a few days

[macsen rufus]

Hi DTS, ah, those Phrygians will keep you on your toes until you get some decent cavalry in the field :yes:

The map corrections in the V2.1 patch are just the correct sea borders in the Black Sea, the problem is you have to reload the entire map to get it in (all because I left a layer of my master copy invisible when I resaved the map for V2.0, doh!). I've decided to leave province names off the map for now, because many are still anachronistic, and I might change them later, so I thought no names would look better than wrong names ~D On the Punic map I went a different route...

You should recognise some of the princesses, especially the ones from the Levantine factions :2thumbsup: But you're right, there are some where I think, "grit your teeth boys, dynasty before pleasure" :laugh4:

IIRC the portrait folders are: Assyrian, Levantine, Egyptian, Catholic, Muslim, Orthodox, Pagan and Northtribs, but the startpos sets which one is used for each faction. If there's no PortraitsOverride command then they get the default folder according to culture (Catholic = Helladic / Hellenic; Muslim = Eastern kingdoms; etc)

[macsen rufus]

I took a look at custom battle set-up over the weekend and had a serious "DOH!" moment when I realised why custom battles hadn't been working for me! Yep, you have to play them on default unit size - even though the units are NOT scalable in campaign, they ARE in custom games. As I normally have my development copy set to HUGE size, custom games always caused a CTD. Once I set it to default, lo and behold, it works fine.

So I've now worked through the custom battle faction associations and brought them into some sort of order, and added some more units in the process, as the "gaps in the line" really show up in the custom battle set-up. It was a really confused situation before as a lot of the associations were relevant to the OLD HTW factions, so had no bearing on the new Ancient ones, which was why a lot of factions had hoplites in their custom battle line-up. I've also corrected the missing parchment an the custom menu.

V2.2 patch surely can't be far away :laugh4:

[dimitrios the samian]

Well done to the creator ! :smash: ... I havn't even got patch 2.1 yet but look forward to any improvements that you have made and are planning on making ,, I notice that a lot of Forts and Stockades etc etc on the Campaign map get called castles when you right click on them or pass over em , Has anyone else noticed this ? I also ported over my first small lot of super alluring princesses and they started appearing and they look awesome !! don't get me wromg I like 70% of your portraits but those stoned face horrors are shocking ... Mac I think Ive got my skills upped enough to handle the TGA's im my photoshop & I'll keep you updated as i work my way to a complete set of all types and send them over to you for a look and approval to include in an updates build .
I also got more years into mu Urartan campaign and just started churning out some cav ,, So I'm not finished yet !! Im going to get those Cimmerians up north eventually and along with my Assyrian buddies assimilate or annialate the Neo Hittites nearby ... more later .
Mac not being picky here but ive trolled the lab & repository and found very little on bifs and bufs .. What i'd like to do is learn some basics to be able to help you as much as i can ,, Ok First how do I use the utilities to get new images into the review panels ? like what you have done with Wheelwrights & Carpenters and others also getting them to appear on the building completed parchment screens ,, Just a start but all good learning for me to help out when you open up the map and begin your other mods in 2008 . :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Hi DTS - briefly: review panel graphics: 50x50 pixels, create using photoshop or similar, save to BMP 256 colours (forced colour for index 0 = 008000), use ReadBif to convert BMP to BIF. For units, it's best to save a colour table from an existing unit if you want to use faction colours (eg open an existing BIF with ReadBif, convert to BMP, them save the colour table from the BMP file using photoshop). Buildings have 68x50 pics instead, IIRC.

The infopics are a little more involved - best thing is to open some up and have a fiddle with photoshop, again BIF to BMP, then Photoshop, save colour tables etc, you can have "fun" with the transparent/near transparent pixels, so I've evolved my own technique which avoids the irritating black dots that can arise. The building completed parchments are in the infopics/coloured folder. The biggest hassle is always going between RGB and indexed mode.

I could do with a few more princesses :yes: Most of them are still the HTW issue, though the Egyptians are new.

Okay, I'm off for lunch :2thumbsup:

[dimitrios the samian]

Thanks for the quick response Mac .. I should have told you to post this one over at the Alchemists Lab ... I'll certainly have fun !! :juggle2: playing and creating now .

[dimitrios the samian]

:yes: ...YES !! Got my first success using bifs & tga's ,, I found a more suitable image depicting the wheelwright and now I have it appearing in the review panel .. I made it 50x50 and its a fraction small as it is 68x50 so i will go back and remake it and then onto modding it larger to appear on the parchment scroll when its constructed ,, I had to use a different sequence to what you wrote as readbif couldn't open the bmp (( message said it ran out of memory streaming ? )) ... more later .

[macsen rufus]

readbif couldn't open the bmp (( message said it ran out of memory streaming ? ))

I sometimes get "memory violation" messages from READBif when I have other graphics packages open, but it usually still loads! The only other thought is did you definitely save your BMP in indexed 256 colour mode?

I beefed up the Israelites' unit roster a bit now, so they have a couple of new units: Hebrew militia (tribal levy, swords & shields, can wipe the floor with Eastern swordsmen ~D) and Judean archers (compound bows + swords, better than eastern bowmen, but still pretty weak in hand to hand), and revised offices "Shalish" ('captain') from wheelwright, and "Sar parashim" (Commander of Horse) from horse farmer (If anyone can correct my Hebrew grammar, please do!) I think a more heavily armoured spear unit is also justifiable from what I've read as well, so maybe do that tonight.

I'm also going to reform the Balts' roster a bit as well, as outlined above, but I got distracted by the new Israelite campaign I started ~D

[macsen rufus]

I took a little side-trip up to the Baltic region last night, and did a bit of reading up of my Marije Gimbutas references, and now have a new Baltic axeman unit complete with double-headed battleaxes and authentic oval shield with solar symbol motif :2thumbsup: They're a bit tougher than your average tribal axeman, and are particularly good at hiding and ambushing :yes: Just as well they come in small units at quite a high price...

I tried them out in a custom battle, set myself up as the Balts, defending against a Slavic incursion, and was pretty pleased with their performance. The Slav warriors approached my line, took a spear volley from my tribal spearmen, then as soon as the Baltic axemen leapt out of their cover the Slavs turned tail and fled....

So these Baltic axemen will be available in a few Baltic regions for rebels, Balts and Slavs only, trainable with a swordsmith. I'll remove the tribal swords from the Balts (not a lot of evidence of swords in the era, they seemed to have more of an axe thing going up there :2thumbsup: ) and give them a javelin skirmisher unit as well. Should liven up the northeast corner of the map a bit and one less "vanilla" barbarian faction.

[dimitrios the samian]

Good to see you progessing & polishing it even further ... I'm enjoying it immensely .:beam: ,, Gonna rock big time when the Eastern map is created !! :2thumbsup: After all thats where all the Golden Mighty Empires were located in this era ,, keep up the good work Mac and I'll keep developing my skills .

[axel]

gg mate i am loving this game mate cant waith till the Eastern map is created :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

I instituted a few reforms for the Israelites last night, with Hebrew names for offices and some faction-unique buildings and units. And I've added in a peasant-class unit (just because I found a cool name for them ~D). Then I discovered that the new units were causing dead-body problems between the different unit_prods (it's amazing what else you can test properly when custom battles are working), so I've had to make some deadpage changes too. We're back to 100% dead bodies again :2thumbsup:

[dimitrios the samian]

Great stuff Mac ... So for those like me with V2.0 will your next upgrade be enough to bring me up to scratch or will I need to go 2.1 then again when you release 2.2 ?

[russia almighty]

Could we get a run down of what the mod now is covering ?

[Wladyslaw IV]

Hey mac, do you think at the very end we could get a very very early Roman era campaign, as the latest campaign in the mod?

[macsen rufus]

Morning all ~D

@ DTS - well, as 2.2 isn't ready yet, there's still a chance to do a 2.0 -> 2.2 AND a 2.1 -> 2.2, as long as I can disentangle everything. Although, if I incorporate 2.1 into 2.2 anyway, then it won't matter whether you have 2.0 or 2.1 to start with :beam:

@ RA - current full install has 3 "main" campaigns on a modified all-Europe map, with more Mid-East provinces, fewer in Europe (where the barbarians live ~D) and extra sea regions.

Early - Age of Chariots - 1280BC to 1200BC (Late Bronze Age)

Factions: Mycenae, Alisya, Hittite Empire, Assyria, Egypt, Libya, Ammonites, Cimmerians, Balts, Slavs, Germanics, Celts, Prytani, Iberians, IberoCelts, Italics, Illyrians, Thracians, Etruscans, Ligurians

High - The Catastrophe - 1200BC to 980BC (Collapse of eastern civilisations)

Factions: Mycenae, Alisya, Hittite Empire, Assyria, Egypt, Libya, Ammonites, Cimmerians, Balts, Slavs, Germanics, Celts, Prytani, Iberians, IberoCelts, Italics, Illyrians, Thracians, Etruscans, Ligurians, Sea Peoples, Ugarit

Late - The Recovery - 980BC to 700BC (Early Iron Age)

Factions: Hellenes, Neo-Hittites, Assyria, Egypt, Libya, Ammonites, Moabites, Israelites, Cimmerians, Balts, Slavs, Germanics, Celts, Prytani, Iberians, IberoCelts, Italics, Illyrians, Thracians, Etruscans, Ligurians, Phrygians, Phoenicians, Edomites, Aramaeans, Urartu


It also includes an add-on campaign for the Punic Wars (270BC to 146BC) on its own all-new campaign map of the Western Mediterranean.

Factions: Rome, Carthage (duh! :laugh4: ), Syracuse, Epirus, Macedonia (Antigonids), Achaean League, Numidians, Gauls, Iberians, IberoCelts, Illyrians

Though the map area may justify it, I've left out Dacians, Thracians, Germans etc etc as they did not get involved in the Punic Wars, though some of their units are available in the appropriate provinces. There are more historical heroes (as we know more of them by name in this era) - including emissaries, spies etc who will show up in 2.2

Recruitment is heavily homelanded, so various factions can raise various auxilliaries in conquered territories, and of course there are unit types not available in the other campaigns (such as all the Roman ones :2thumbsup: )


@Wladyslaw - hmmm, no plans at present, but I guess to do it justice, it would really need to focus just on Italy and include factions like Etruscans, Samnites, Oscans, Messapians, Bruttians, Greek settlers etc etc and start in 783BC(?? - can't honestly remember the exact date for the foundation of Rome) and run to - what? - foundation of the Republic? Start units - a Trojan refugee and two wolves...:laugh4:

Right now I don't really know enough about the very early history of Rome.

And of course there's still the Alexander/Successors "Eastern campaign" in the pipeline....

[dimitrios the samian]

:smash: .. Wladyslaw .. The Eastern Campaign is the logical way to progress ! from the Diadochi of Alexanders successors and backwards thru various era's as all if not most of the units & other peices are ready ,, Its the one that deserves Macsens skills ,, But Mac do make sure you get plenty of time for R&R :yes:

[seireikhaan]

Hey, I was checking the forums, and decided this looked like a pretty worthwhile mod. And I was indeed correct. I'm currently having a blast as the Myceneans, although by now I'm getting near the point of cruise control(the only thing really standing in my way by this point was the insanely massive re-emergence the Italics had against the Etruscans, something like 13 full stacks emerging in a combined 3 provinces, and they decided to target me next after they finally finished the Etruscans). A couple questions, though. Can anyone train Phoenician marines? If so, what are the requirements to build them?

Also, I had one slight technical issue. I was using the extremely good mycenean sword unit(can't remember the name off the top of my head) and I found that when I was conquering Egypt and other parts of North Africa, in the battle, the unit was 'flickering'. It would always be there, but the actual visual sprites and formation would flicker between invisible and visible every second. Then when I was using them in the north against the slavs, the visual came in fine with no glitches. Any idea what's happening hear?

[macsen rufus]

Greetings Kamikhaan, glad to hear you're enjoying the Mycenaeans :bow: Good luck with those Italics, but with the power and wealth of the Mycenaean palaces behind you, I'm sure you'll whittle them down pretty quickly ~D

Phoenician marines are only available in Late (ie "The Recovery"), only for the Phoenicians and only in Phoenicia, Ugarit and Canaan. Luckily they are the BG unit, so not quite as rare as they could be :beam: Other units are more widely available once the Phoenicians start settling their historical colonies :2thumbsup: Can't quite recall the build requirements now, but it will be something like Spearmaker's workshop + shipbuilder (I try to keep them intuitive ~D)

Actually there's an outside chance Ugarit might be able to train them if they survive to High - I can't honestly remember now whether they are "turned off" in the early/high unit_prod files. (Ugarit and Phoenicia use the same faction ID ingame, being as they don't overlap historically, and are both pretty much Canaanites at root).

I guess it must be the Myrmidons you're referring to with the flicker - it does sound strange, as it varies with different enemies - usually animation problems are consistent and persistent. It's not something I've seen myself, but I also think I've not actually had any Myrmidons in a battle since I created the Celtic Noble unit from the same animation. For reference, what version of Ancient do you have - you might not even have the latest animation, in which case I'd be barking up the wrong tree... Also, does it affect the unit in all of it's "actions" or just some? ie walking, standing, running, fighting etc? I'll fire up some custom battles and have a look see if I can recreate it anyway. Oh, also, was there any great difference in the size of the battles (ie overall number of men on the field)?

LATEST NEWS: the eastern campaign map is nearly ready, so I'll be able to get that campaign built up before too long (though I seem to recall it took me about a month of fiddling on the Punic map... ~D)

[seireikhaan]

I'm using the 2.1 patch, so it should be the latest available version. And yes, it was myrmidons. Regardless of what I was ordering them to do, the image was always flickering. Although it might be noted that when they were flickering, I did not send them to fight(didn't need to for that battle, thankfully), so I can't say for that. I had to battles I fought with them in North Africa, one of which was a fort assault, and the other a bridge defense. The fort assault was against roughly 200 total soldiers, while the bridge battle was against roughly 1,300. In the northern campaign, the battle was against about 1,400 enemies. So I'm not quite sure what's going on with them, a bit baffled personally.

Oh, and I have more than just the Mycenaean palaces behind me. More like the Mycenaean palaces, and the former Egyptian, Slavic, Assyrian, Hittite, Ammonite, Cimmerean, Illyrian, and Carpathian palaces as well.:beam:

Oh, and speaking of custom battles, I'm rather having trouble getting them to work, as it seems many of the maps don't seem to work in custom battle. So far, I've been getting CTD's when trying custom battles, with only the exception of one which involved the LONGEST brigde I've ever seen.

[macsen rufus]

Thanks for the feedback, Kamikhaan - I'm also mystified by the flickering myrmidons (hmm, great name for a band, though :clown: )

Custom games should all be sorted for 2.2 - I have them working on my development copy now, and have straightened out all of the unit availabilities. It took me a long while to get round to this simply because I overlooked a simple fact - although units are not scalable in campaign mode, they ARE in custom games and therefore you MUST play with default unit size or smaller. Maybe check your size setting and give it another whirl, that should end the custom CTDs.

Obviously I haven't played every map in custom mode yet (there are over 500 of them now ~D) but once I got the unit size and availability sorted custom games have worked fine for me. Which is good, as it now means I can test new units without starting a new campaign, teching up, picking a battle etc etc :laugh4:

Those LONG bridges are original HTW maps, makes things a bit different from the standard "line up your archers here" formula bridge battle - makes you think twice about invading a river-defended crossing too (well it does me, anyway ~D)

[Sigma]

and Alexander campaign and post-Alexander would be wonderous for this game :D and maybe a classical era campaign as well.

If you managed to pull that off, then this mod would be awsomness and cover a huge time period as well :P

from like the Late Bronze ages to the rise of rome...

[seireikhaan]

Ok, another update on the flickering Myrmidons. During a beatdown of the Italics, they were once again flickering between solid and transparent. This time, they did do some fighting(quite well, I must say) and it went exactly as I'd figured(shredding armed slave rebels like paper:beam: ). It just looked a bit odd as much of the time, it looked like the enemy was collapsing in on itself.:laugh4: Or else they were all be slewn by ghosts.:laugh4: Anyhow, I finished that campaign at a 2/3 victory after blitzing all of the slav's provinces and most of the celts in 3 turns.:beam: I rather liked militia's with stadium'd valor, +3 morale from temples, +3 armor, and +4 attack from Hungary. Too bad, I never did quite get to Myrmidons with +2 valor, +3 armor, +3 morale, and +4 attack. Game ended too soon, and I didn't quite get the master swordsmith I needed in that province.:sweatdrop:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Sigma, long time no see - the Alexander map is about ready for testing, soon as I correct the palettes in the minimaps. Once it's functional I can start the interesting bit - setting up factions, units and provinces etc etc. I'm hoping it should be functional tonight, fingers crossed. Most of the Persian Empire units are already set up from HTW, so that end of things should go together quite easily, and the map stretches far enough to include the Indians as a faction (King Porus). You're just going to have to gloss over the fact that their units will look mostly Arab in nature :laugh4:

So I expect the next release will include all my latest changes (custom battles sorted, a few new units etc etc) plus the Alexander campaign. Once that's released we can have few people playing the new map before I start the Diadochi (on the same Alex map of course).

@Kamikhaan - those invisible myrmidons sound pretty scary, like somehting from "Jason and the Argonauts" :laugh4: Most odd - have you tried the Punic campaign yet? It would be interesting to see if the same happens with the Celtic Nobles, as they are pretty much the same with a different shield.

IIRC I don't think the myrmidons would be available from Hungary, they have a pretty tight "Helladic" homeland and can't be trained in any iron provinces, the best you could get would be a copper province upgrade (ie +2 attack). It's a while since I set up the homelands, but I think the best place for them should be Alisya. Of course you could be devious, have your princes "come of age" in Hungary and then dismount the chariots to myrmidons ~D But I could be wrong, it is a while since I messed with Mycenae.

Anyway, if one of your "flickering" battles was a north african bridge then I think I know which map it would be (Nile crossing for Egypt), so I can give it a go in custom...

[seireikhaan]

No, they weren't being trained from Hungary, the best I could do there were the pumped up militia. I was training them from a turkish province(the name escapes me atm, but its the one to the right of the province which can train Lukka pirates) where I had iron available. That was the only province where I could train my hellenic units w/ iron, so I figured I might as well train my best there, so I could have my own 'sacred band' troops, in a sense. I was still training them from a couple other provinces as well, of course, they just couldn't get as much of an iron upgrade. And speaking of Lukka pirates, I must say, they were a favorite of mine, especially in dealing with barbarians in the north, where they were often superior in hand to hand in comparison to most of their units, in addition to their bow, obviously. And yes, I was being a bit devious, as I set my kings in the turkish iron provinces, so that my princes were all extremely tough(considering that with some 'pruning' of my royal line, I was pumping out princes with 6-8 command:beam: ). Too bad a number of them turned out to be nutjobs who liked to dance in the moonbeams.:sweatdrop:

Oh, and the provinces the battles I had Myrmidons in, off the top of my head: Venice- vs Italics. Alexandria(I know that's not the actual name,the province north of Thebes)- Egyptian rebels/Egyptian counterattack, Tunisia- Libyans/fort assault, and Levidia- slavs.

[macsen rufus]

Ok, well, I'd also forgotten I'd redrawn the borders in Asia Minor in the last release!

:yes: I like the Lukka pirates, too... especially where your faction's own archers are a bit lacklustre ~D

I shall fire up some custom battles over the weekend, see if I can reproduce the flicker, then I shall be back on Monday :2thumbsup:

[Sigma]

If you ever want to add wonders to the eastern maps, I have some images left over from when I was a historian from Megas Alexandros...

Wonders:
-Hanging Gardens of Babylon
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/hanging2.jpg

-City of Petra
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/lost-city-petra-jordan-big.jpg

-Great Pyramids
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/The-Great-Pyramids.jpg

-Solomon's Temple
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/temple.jpg

-------------------------------
Units:
-Catapult
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/102.gif
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/103.jpg
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/hsc11a.jpg
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/image003.jpg
-Oxybeles
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/oxybeles.jpg
-Calvery (forget what kind)
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/m_cavalr-1.jpg
-Hetairoi
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/250px-Macedonian_hetairoi_from_movi.jpg
-Phalangite
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/phalangite.jpg
-Thessalian Calvery
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/008048.jpg
-Hypaspist
https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/Sigma_011/320px-Hypaspist.jpg

[dimitrios the samian]

:smash: .. Nice images Sigma do keep getting them as Im getting better at using them for parchments & review panel images for this mod , and great news about your latest map Macsen !! :2thumbsup: ,, About those Indians at the Indus > Do have a look at BKB's Age of Warlords mod , as I read that he created or modded some earlier figures into native Americans looking Indians .. so perhaps with a little adjustment to their skin tone those Arabs you intend using will be fairly close in resemblance ,, Also I have a full set of Indians in 15mm miniatures all painted by me so I'll pull em out of the case dust em off and get snapshots for you , amongst them are some awesome elephant units as well as some very nice heavy chariots !! . cheers for now ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

Morning all,

Time for a little "Alexander Teaser", as I made a bit of progress over the weekend (still along way to go yet, though):

Opening screen:


https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000076.jpg

Campaign map:


https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000077.jpg

Campaign map again:


https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000078.jpg




@Sigma, yes, some of those images will come in handy - like the hypaspist, as I don't have a hypaspist unit yet. Some of them had already been found and used for HTW (the Companion cav and Yficratian hoplite) so are already in there :2thumbsup:

[axel]

well done mate

[dimitrios the samian]

Bloody great stuff Macsen !!! :2thumbsup:

[Xehh II]

What factions are in the alexander campaign? Only Macedon and Persia?

[dimitrios the samian]

+ INDIA ....

[macsen rufus]

Glad you like :bow:

I haven't decided on all of the factions yet, but last night I added in Sparta and the Illyrians. The Indians will probably be represented by the Taxiles - with a single province, and leaving the other two Indian provinces as rebels at the start so they have room to grow before tackling anyone else. For the Diadochi period they will become the Mauryans, I think. Obviously there will also be one or more steppe nomad factions - Scyths and/or Saka, but that's probably all. The Diadochi should be more fragmented with more "breakaway" factions available.

It's an 'interesting' start for the Macedonians as Greece is a little bit rebellious under Alexander (not that I've set the names up yet, he still appears as Antigonos ~D), and I 've had a bit of fun tweaking that area for rebellions - if they do blow, you won't be facing the usual stack of slingers and slaves, but full blown citizen hoplite armies :2thumbsup: . As he found historically, he won't be able to go rampaging across Asia until he's put the Greeks, Epirotes, Illyrians and Thracians back in their respective places. And of course the Persian Empire, being so vast, has a few rebellious corners far from the gaze of Dareios.

I'm currently having some fun with the sea regions not interconnecting properly, which is really annoying as I started with one interconnection not working, fixed everything, then ended up with all sea regions acting as independent ponds.... so I shall have a fresh look tonight and hopefully something obvious will hit me ~D

[dimitrios the samian]

Your really spoiling us :beam: .. I'll snap & send you those pics of my Indians real soon .

[macsen rufus]

@DTS - look forward to that :yes:

So far I'm expecting the Indian unit roster to be along these lines:

Elephants
Chariots (archer type, as per the Vedas)
Indian Longbows
Horse archers
Medium lancer cavalry
Spearmen - probably two flavours, heavy and light
Javelin skirmishers
Some other melee unit(s) - sword, mace, club whatever is historically supportable.

And the ubiquitous slingers, of course...


EDIT: one final thought - I've been thinking about the three eras - if I make "Alex" High, then "Diadochi" would be Late. For early I might go back to the beginning of the Persian Empire - Medes, Assyrians, Lydians, Ionians etc etc etc, but more research first, of course...

[Wladyslaw IV]

Beautiful, man, beautiful. This is some great stuff indeed. ~:)

[ULC]

I would be careful Macsen. Your mod has the potential to extrapolate forever. You may get lost in modding paradise, and we all may lose you forever :laugh4: :laugh4: ! Seriously, you may be able to go back to the Stone Age!

At present, your covering from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (duh!), but the ability to go even further, specifically to the fall of the Roman Empire in the west could quite literally make MTW one of the LONGEST GAMES EVER!
Between your mod (Ancient Total War), to mine (Dark Age Total War), to vanilla(XL and BKB), to Cegorachs (Pike and Musket), we (The Modders/Community) have taken a great medieval game and made into a game that covers almost all of humanities history of organized warfare! This is an astounding feat, for any game!

Errmm..sorry abou' that. Just couldn't help myself :whip: .
Looks great Macsen...:embarassed: .

[macsen rufus]

Well, strictly speaking the HTW Bronze Age scenario goes back to 2000BC, rather than the 1280BC that Ancient reaches, so there's another 720 years.... :laugh4:

Hmmm:

Pleistocene TW "The Australopithecines have invaded and are besieging your 'Cave and bone-throwing towers', however it will take many millenia for your garrison to evolve enough to understand their predicament..."

"Disaster! An earthquake strikes and enlarges your cave."

------------------------------------------------------

Glad to say I have put the sea regions right, I had overlooked something simple :no: To make it worse, it was something I'd even written into my startpos comments so I wouldn't overlook it in the future.....

I'm now finding it difficult to get custom portraits working - I'm sure there is a totally random bug in there. In Punic I got it working for Hannibal, but Scipio plain refused, even though I set it up on the same principles. Now I can't set my Alex portrait - in fact it doesn't seem to matter what I do, Alex always has a random portrait. I really cannot see why it's not working. Following the way it's set up in MTW:VI heroes.txt files, it should be working. I confirmed this by looking at some other mods that use custom portraits - we're all doing the same things, yet the results are different. :daisy:ing frustrating...

[seireikhaan]

Hey Macsen, were you able to recreate the flickering myrmidons yet? I'm rather curious as to that little anomoly.

Also, on the Alexander map, why are India and Macedon such similar colors? Its nothing really major, especially considering that they're on opposite ends of the map, but its just something I find a tad annoying.

Other than that, it looks great!:bow:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Kamikhaan - no, my myrmidons resolutely refuse to flicker. Anything else you recall that may vary between your flickering and non-flickering appearances? I've tried a few different map/enemy combinations but they are always fully present, so I'm even more mystified now than before :inquisitive:

Erm, India? You'll kick yourself in a minute - that's actually an inset map with a close-up of Greece - I thought I might as well use it as it allowed me to fit more provinces in (eg Laconia :2thumbsup: ), and it's one of the deciding factors why I chose this map over others I was considering. Trying to find a single map that does justice to both the scale of the Persian Empire AND the intricacies of Greece isn't easy - I thought using the inset map was the best compromise.

[Hound of Ulster]

The inset map was a good solution to your problem with those crazy Greek cities. Why doesn't CA use inset maps?

[dimitrios the samian]

Speaking of maps ,, Have you had any grander thoughts yet of placing all the superb work you have done so far on a enlarged map that stretches eastward ? It would be the icing on the cake for the three biblical chariot periods Late Bronze Age >> Early Iron Age ,, It would make some for some incredible challenges allowing various empires to form in that region ,, Its just so tite around that litle section of the map with Assyrians , Phyrgians , Urartians etc etc all having to head west as their only way to expand ,, Omar Pacha created some amazing maps for a different mod currently being worked on "Perhaps he can be asked to create on for this ? :yes: ... ps Those Indians have been dusted & prep'd pics will be on their way to you soon ,, Good luck with the Alex prob Mac Im sure you will figure it out :yes: ..

[Sigma]

I can't wait for this mod, Punic Wars, Alexander, Bronze Ages, hopfully next he will do a Eastern Bronze Age campaign, or a Rome at its imperialistic height :D

[macsen rufus]

A brief update on Alex map :

- province attributes and borders all set - it's a lot more fun when the provinces aren't all "arid and flat" ~D. Been making some new battlemaps for the eastern part of the map - mostly rock desert/mountains, which seems about right for Afghanistan etc.

- tweaked economy a bit, but still not 100% happy with it (Persian Empire still obscenely rich :beam: )

- factions so far: Macedonia, Spartans, Illyrians, Persians, Taxiles/Gandharans (Taxiles was the king's title, based in the city of Taxila....), Scythians.

- The Indians so far have: elephants, chariots, horse archers, longbows (with sword - good attack), levy spearmen (large shields, better than your average levy), eastern archers (sbow) and slingers - they play quite well, and are quite good in the rocky mountains of the eastern Persian Empire ~D Looking forward to pics from DTS for more ideas :2thumbsup:

To do:

- still got some land/sea border issues - mostly ports acting in the wrong sea region - simple to fix, once I can find them all!

- ports to fix - many facing the wrong way (ie to land, not sea!)

- proper names/shield/portraits/infopics etc for Indian faction

- a few units waiting to be created (eg hypaspists, agrianes, Parthian and Bactrian units etc)

- wondering about including Nabateans as a faction?

- still need to set rebels and rebel names across the map, and "geographically appropriate" starting armies for rebel provinces (currently they all have one unit of tribal spears, so are bit of a push-over so far.... don't go thinking they'll be that easy in the release :devil:)

[Sigma]

Maybe make the Persian territories more likly to rebel, to prevent them from blitzing the map and focusing more on keeping there own territory under rule.... dunno if that will work, just a suggestion...

[macsen rufus]

Hi Sigma,

There's still a bit of tweaking to do, but rest assured there are 'issues' that the King of Kings will have to deal with in some far-flung corners :laugh4: Not even the most anal micromanagement nerd will be able to get the Persians through the first year without at least one rebellion (on "hard" setting, anyway).

All of which reminds me by a very circuitous route, that I also need to do a whole raft of historical heroes for this scenario.... :book:

The one big problem is, of course, that it's impossible in the game to defeat the Persians in a mere 13 years. I'm currently playing a Mac campaign - sorry, did I say playing? I mean 'testing' - and am on to Alexandros IV (you know, the congenital idiot who never made it beyond primary school IRL) and have only just managed to cut the Gordian Knot. I had bit of a to-do with the Scythians that set things back by a few turns, so I stomped on their sand-castle, razed their capital to the ground, and kicked them out into the glorified front lawn they refer to as a homeland. They haven't been back to bother good upstanding not-really-semi-barbarian Macedonian folk since :clown:

[macsen rufus]

Ah, well, I found the Mac campaign so engrossing I just played a few more years last night and didn't quite get around to making any progress :beam: But on the plus side, I've decided some of the province attributes are wrong, and it's been coming up with unconvincing map choices for battles. So a few tweaks in order.

I've also managed to find a good list of Indian names for the Kingdom of Taxiles (over 500, should be enough variety I guess :2thumbsup: ), and I guess I need a few portraits, as well....

The way things are going I reckon I should be able to do the next release before Christmas, so that would bring in the Alex campaign, and a few tweaks to the Bronze Age and Punic campaigns as well :2thumbsup: Which I guess will make it V3.0, skipping right over 2.1 after all....

[western]

Regarding the 13 years point, who's to say that a turn equals a year? After all, it doesn't take a year to cross a small patch of sea. A turn as a month might be more realistic, and then you have more than 150 turns to achieve the conquest. It would be a shame to make things easy just to achieve speed - but I sense that easy may not be a word to employ in respect of this Mod, certainly at the higher settings...

[seireikhaan]

Hey Macsen, I can't figure out what is causing the flickering myrmidons. Furthermore, I had a few MORE units flickering when I tried a Urarturuan game, with the Urarturuan horse archers and a unit of eastern light cav flickering now as well. Which I find odd, because in an Israelite campaign, the eastern light cav were working fine every time.:inquisitive: Dunno, maybe its my computer, but I can't imagine why exactly that would be, as I've never had any flickering units in regular tw or any other mods. Ah well.

Also, a few questions. First of all, I'm failing to see the point of Siskinnies. Perhaps I haven't played the right faction, but I can't figure out what they do.

Also, what is needed to build an imperial palace? I'm having a bit of trouble figuring it out, as it seems I'm randomly having provinces suddenly being able to build it. The only thing I've figured so far is the Isrealites perhaps need the Temple of Solomon? But it seems there's something else as well, because I've had another province suddenly able to build it as well. So I guess the question is, what do I need to build imperial palaces?

Oh, and lastly. I'm not sure I've ever had as much fun as I did when playing as the Isrealites! That is one tough campaign, but I've finally built myself a solid empire after being on the brink multiple times due to re-emergences and betrayals. Currenly extending from Morocco in the west to Armenia in the east, this took a looooong time to get all this land. Also, my congratulations on the Jewish Temple of Solomon priest. Spreading Judaism, Heresy, AND raising zeal? I have a new favorite subterfuge weapon!:laugh4:

[macsen rufus]

@Western - the only real problem with roleplaying the year/turn thing is you end up with kings aged in dog years :laugh4: I really would like to set it to four turns per year like in good old STW, that would make a great improvement, and give you a chance of getting somewhere in a realistic length royal lifetime. Ah, well, just have to make some compromises, I guess, and accept that you won't do it all with your original Alexander....

@Kamikhaan - curiouser and curiouser.... I wonder if it may be a video card issue, and you're operating right at the edge? I know it took me a few tweaks to get my card right for MTW/STW use, though the effects were a bit more noticeable than a random flicker. My issue was the GeForce 5200 needing OLD drivers for MTW & STW and updated drivers for RTW - I had to choose which games I wanted most :2thumbsup: (It's also why I need to get this mod in a "finished" state before I can try out EB ~D) I wonder if number of missiles affects it too? It might be worth finding a battle that gives the problem, and replaying it a few times with different performance settings... drat, except that might not work in campaign mode, IIRC. Well you may be able to change pyrotechnics, ambient fauna, smoke etc, so there may be a chance to find out a bit more that way.

Siskinies give a title, but not necessarily for all factions - it's one of those buildings due for a faction-specific reform when I get around to it. It's one that came across from HTW and hasn't had much tailoring yet...

Hmm, Imperial Palace... I can't honestly remember! I know it requires a Castle but I'm not sure what else - maybe a level 2 religious building? Or possibly one of the admin types (Scribal School, Law Court or something....) It is possible it's unique as well - the Citadel level of castle is unique, but I can't recal how I did that, except that it depends on a unique pre-requisite (and that barbarian factions can't get that level of castle). It's all done to keep the top level of troop upgrades rare, and not have hordes of gold/gold supermen roaming the map.

Glad the Israelite campaign's so entertaining, I certainly had fun putting it together. And those priests are a meddlesome bunch, aren't they :laugh4: I think having a unique religion also makes them more prone to those rebellions and betrayals as well (so it's kinda true to life, there...)

[macsen rufus]

{ {ROYAL_COURT3, CASTLE7, SCRIBALSCHOOL}, {ROYAL_COURT3, CASTLE7, TEMPLE_SOL} }

Different build requirements for the Imperial Palace depending on faction.

It will be unique - as both Scribal School and Temple of Solomon are unique - unless you happen to capture a province and keep the Scribal School standing, in which case you can have another IP and another Citadel....

[macsen rufus]

Here's a bit of flesh on the bones of the Indian faction:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000083.jpg


https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000085.jpg

[Sigma]

Nice, Raja's picture looks a tad creepy if you stare at it longer then 1 min. :P

Anyways, how will the larger scaled greece work?, its all the way over on the other side of the map.... also, in Arabia maybe have an Arabic Tribes faction to cause the Persians a little bit of a headache (if there is provences in and or around Arabia...)

[macsen rufus]

@Sigma - if you think the Raja's creepy, just wait til you see their spies :laugh4:

In Arabia there are two other provinces that lie unconquered by the Persians - Nabatea and Aramaea, currently rebel held, but I might make the Nabateans a faction in their own right (yes, another one-province wonder for players who are tired of life ~D) This time around the Aramaeans will stay as a bunch of wandering rebels, though.

The Greek provinces are set up so they count as "same province" areas at either end of the map. It does mean dragging your stacks all across the map if you want to cross from Macedonia to Epirus, say, but once you have all of Greece pacified there'll be a lot less of that. It would have been nice if the inset was the far end of the map nearer to the actual spot, but alas, it is where it is... (well actually having said that, there is just room for a stack to stand on the small copy of Greece on the main map, but you can forget they're there ~D)

[mhorohello]

Dear Macsen

I would just like to say thank you very much for this modification. Basically, anything that keeps Medieval Total War going has got to be good. And this is a very good modification! Could I just ask a question please? Is it possible to play "quick battles?", without going to the custom battle option? It doesn't really matter of course, I am just wondering.

So far I have played a few custom battles using the default unit size and they seem to work out fine. I tried running the custom battle using the huge unit size and those resulted in a CTD every time.

I have some friends who also like Medieval Total War and I may try out a LAN multiplayer game (or ten!) of Ancient Total War. Perhaps I can convert all of them too!

Brilliant stuff.

Paul

[macsen rufus]

Morning all, and welcome mhorohello, glad you're enjoying Ancient :2thumbsup: . There's more to come yet, as well, with the Alex campaign...

Quick battles - I'm not sure how they're set up, and I certainly haven't looked at it. It might be possible to do something here, I suspect they may just be something like custom battles saved in a new folder, but I'm really guessing now.

And yes, custom battles must be on default or smaller - I was kind of surprised to discover this myself, as all the units are set to be "unscaleable" (ie fixed unit size) but this seems to only affect the units in campaign mode.

Latest news re the face-lift for the Gandharans (ie the followers of King/Raja Taxiles):

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000086.jpg

The Alex campaign is getting close to completion I think, I've just redone all the port orientations, economy/farmland, homelands for troops, something interesting at sea and now have the Gandharans all set up properly (admittedly they need more portraits, but that can be fixed in time...)

So I propose one big patch that will add Alex plus all the new changes for the main and Punic campaigns, and that will be V3.0. I'm sure it will be ready for Xmas :san_cool:

[dimitrios the samian]

Nice work once again Macsen !!!! :2thumbsup: ... Have you thought about Elephants with armour ? Would look awesome and could also be historically correct ?

[macsen rufus]

@DTS - well, thought about it (especially when I was looking at some very nice pictures from a Moghul-era copy of the Mahabharata...), but the only changes I do to unit animations is adding shields and weapons, nothing major - just far too much time required...

[dimitrios the samian]

Good news Mac ,, I agree now those armoured Elephants and for that matter any new units or re-animations must be a hell of a lot of work :dizzy2: ... but perhaps they may become a reality for your mod in the near future . I remembered a thread :idea2: you responded to a few weeks ago "Working Bifs" and I went back to it ,, My Kudo's to :2thumbsup: you . Its easy to follow instructions and well written & for the first time I used the the readbif succesfully and actually saw animations working .
I beleive with some practice & guidance I can succesfully add armour to those beasts :yes: .. but first I must get better at playing what you have already created ,, cheers for now ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

:bow:

thanks for the mail DTS, got the pics and looks a fascinating article, shall read that at my leisure tonight :2thumbsup:

[seireikhaan]

Hmm. I think it must be my graphics card or something, regarding the flickering. I know mine is rather dated(even for MTW standards) so that is quite possible that it might not run all the newer unit graphics quite right.

Anyways, I have a couple of comments regarding the Punic campaign. First of all, its very short! I had conquered at a fairly decent clip(at least for me). Then I got quite a shock when I was given the message that I had 20 turns left. Now bear in mind that I am Rome, with near full production capacity in the Italian Peninsula. Fortunately, I was able to go capture a bunch of barbarian provinces quickly afterwards, and was at least able to get a 60% victory.

One other thing. Battles, were, in a way, rather boring, once I'd unified the Peninsula to the south. All my troops were so much better than the barbarians that they kept falling back, falling back, until they either retreated from the province, or made a desperate last stand in the corner while I massacred them with arrow fire and the far superior infantry. Perhaps it would be more interesting as one of the barbarian factions, idk. In the end, I didn't end up having to fight Carthage that much, with the exception of their navy, which obviously isn't quite as intersting as fighting their armies. For one thing, the Libyans had captured Carthage itself early on, and Carthage never took it back! Rather odd, I must say. I never really had any fair battles against them, as they'd already been worn down by the time I'd declared war from their other 5 wars against other factions. Plus, I had been able to take Corsica and Sardinia earlier on when Carthage suffered a pretty bad civil war, and I think losing those two islands probably hurt them a bit(especially Sardinia's income). In all, I think it was rather too easy to play as Rome, but I guess there's probably a reason for that.:laugh4:

Oh, and one thing I though was VERY neat. I witnessed Hannibal Barca lead a large rebellion against the Libyans. I've never seen a hero come from a loyalist rebellion, I must say, very neat. Although at first I was nearly scared senseless when I first saw his command of 7, because I hadn't realized that his bonus for attacking a province had kicked in yet.:sweatdrop:

[macsen rufus]

@Kamikhaan: yes, the Punic one is a bit short - I set it to the historic period of the Punic Wars. The only two "victory" provinces are Rome and Carthage, so it shouldn't be possble to have a 60% victory at all :inquisitive: I was hoping that this would serve to make Rome and Carthage start their war, but left to the AI it never seems to happen.... However, left to the AI, Rome rarely conquers the map either - Carthage is more likely to turn into a steam roller.

I'm sure if you try a campaign as the Gauls you'll be able to beat the Romans easily enough - I usually test everything in "hard" setting, and so far have managed to win with each faction (except when I was playing as Achaeans and was unable to break Carthaginian naval dominance ~D) The problem I have is that knowing all the units' and factions' individual quirks, I do find it too easy to get the best out of them - bit like trying to proof-read your own writing.... :clown:

:laugh4: Yes, Hannibal can be a bit scary on the attack! But it wouldn't be the Punic Wars if he wasn't :laugh4: Did the correct portrait come up for him? I've been finding custom portraits are a bit unpredictable, so it would be interesting to know :2thumbsup:

[seireikhaan]

Ooh, the portrait...honestly, I wasn't even really paying attention to it. By the last save file, I'm pretty sure ol' Hannibal's already gone, so I don't think I can really check or anything.:sweatdrop:

Oh, and as for the Rome/Carthage thing...my bad. I never actually got around to snagging Carthage 'cuz I was allied to the Libyans, who'd already taken it. I've never played a mtw campaign where victory was dependant on gaining a specific province/provinces. And I wasn't exactly bereft of money, so I didn't really need Carthage, so I never actually took it.:sweatdrop:

And yeah, I was a bit concerned a few times about Carthage steamrolling the map, but they got turned back at one rather critical point by a civil war, which, in combination with their five wars going on, stalled them pretty good without my help. I just made sure they got a nice whupping later on when I trashed their navy, and took all their west med. provinces in Spain and the Balearic Islands.

[cegorach]

:laugh4: Yes, Hannibal can be a bit scary on the attack! But it wouldn't be the Punic Wars if he wasn't :laugh4: Did the correct portrait come up for him? I've been finding custom portraits are a bit unpredictable, so it would be interesting to know :2thumbsup:


I have managed to find a way around that problem some time ago (so it works perfectly in PMTW) - I have not set a major subdirectory for the mod specific porraits, but only faction/culture specific directories named differently than in the vanilla.

Next all the hero portaits I have put in the vanilla misc folders (according to the religions their factions use) - and it works perfectly.

The cost is to have all the bloody rebels coming with vanilla portraits unfortunatelly , but that can be adjusted by replacing the original portraits - to some extend at least.

Of course it might not matter at all or on the contrary it does a lot, but if you want to add a large group of historical heroes with their own portraits this is the surest way I could find - in PMTW I have (or will have) over 300 historical characters and at least 100 use their own portraits so it is a must for me.:egypt:

[Hound of Ulster]

can't wait for the 3.0, mostly because I'm not sure about the Rise of Persia mod I have installed for RTW. RoP seems kinda buggy for some reason.

[macsen rufus]

@Cegorach - I did take a peek at the PMTW portrait folders, and checked the way you had done it for your starting kings :2thumbsup: Using that technique, I tried to get Alex and Dareios portraits set up, but they still didn't come out properly (still random), but from what you say, I think it was down to using an "Alex" sub-folder - so if I put my custom ones into the top-level folder it may work..... hmmmmmm.....

On the other hand - I also used a "Punic" subfolder for that campaign, and Hannibal worked (for me at least ~D), but Scipio Africanus didn't. That's what I mean about it being unpredictable. I didn't try to set start kings or heroes for the main campaign (it seems to keep bringing up Ramses II just fine, as it is - probably because I have so many copies of him in my Egyptian/Kings folder :laugh4: )

I noticed that the Lordz must have struggled as well when setting up NTW, as their portrait folders just have a single king for each faction.....

[seireikhaan]

Okay, got another question, Macsen. I've been fiddling with it for a while now, but for the life of me, I just can't figure out what the heck mining teams are suppposed to do. I get that their supposed to be ranged of some kind, but it doesn't ever seem to be 'in range' of their target. Help?

[cegorach]

If they are for the same purpose as in PMTW they are supposed to destroy walls during a siege. Their range is extremely low for sure.

[macsen rufus]

If they are for the same purpose as in PMTW

:yes: :yes: :yes: :clown: Yep, that was another great idea I borrowed from Cegorach :bow:

They're there to get around the minor problem of even battering rams not having been invented until pretty near the end of main Ancient scenario (ie 700BC)

They are effectively very short range artillery with range of a few yards, you have to be carerful when positioning them as the game always assumes the "target" is the centre of the stretch of wall, so that's where the miners need to be... remember to use the ranged attack - as usual, you'll get the little green arrow when they're ready to rock. Take them off skirmish or they'll move back everytime someone moves inside the castle....

Also they have "hide in the open" capacity as they really should be safely invisible underground, picking away at the foundations of the wall.

In V3.0 they will have had a few tweaks, ones which I don't think are in any released copy yet, that will restrict them to mine complex (and therefore do away with the valour bonus as well), and also tweaked to stop the AI sending hordes of them out to fight field battles :inquisitive: Their appearance in rebellions is also turned right down as well.

[dimitrios the samian]

Looking forward to 3.0 !! ..:2thumbsup: .. Just wondering if the Assyrians will get seige equipment ? they were famous for inventing & using them . Also will any of the chariot era's be expanded onto the larger map you are going to use for the Alkexander campaign ? .. sorry to keep bugging you Mac :tredmil: