Htw Spin-off Mod - Ancient: TW

[macsen rufus]

Hi there Dimitrios! Good to see you around again - how can I forget the guy that emailed those pics? :laugh4:

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

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

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

Starting provinces:

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

Egyptian campaign:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000046.jpg


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

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

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

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

[dimitrios the samian]

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

[axel]

Hi mate,
It looks really great i think there will be a lot of people playing this mod mate:2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

(Macsen ,, You are keen !! Seems like it will be a labour of love for you ,, Have you played Rome TW yet ? Im sure if you are going to put so much work into a project it would be better to do it on a platform thats very very popular !) Who sais this is not verry popular ? mate i think there will be a lot of people playing this mod mate :2thumbsup:

[dimitrios the samian]

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

[axel]

Hi mate,
Yes mate i hope this will get out also it would be great to play this mod mate
yes i got Fall of rome as well the last version they fixed it up really great its a wonderfull mod. I got 7 modded MTW on my PC i love the game
Well i hope this will get out to play:2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

I hope it sees the light of day before another computer dies on me :laugh4:

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

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

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

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

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

I need to decide on a date for "iron age" technology to appear (maybe as a "high" period) but giving early access to the Hittites in Anatolia and Celts in Hungary / Halstatt homeland. I'm also making the pagan ("barbarian" tech-tree more drawn out so they have to do more developments in order to catch up with the "civilised" factions of the Middle East (not forgetting that early advantage in ironworking and maybe horse breeding :2thumbsup: )

[axel]

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

[macsen rufus]

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

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/ramses2.jpg

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

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/battle1.jpg

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

[axel]

really nice mate really nice:yes:

[dimitrios the samian]

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

[cegorach]

Good work !

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

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

Some people could help you with the research which would be very useful in this modding project. Currently only some people notice the idea...:juggle2:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Cegorach - thanks for the kind words. I have to admit that some of your ideas from PMTW have already helped me! :bow: So far most of the "hard work" that's gone into this has been second-hand - VikingHorde's map, and the HTW team's units, so I can't claim a lot of credit, I'm just mixing up the toys in my toybox so they can play together :laugh4:

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

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

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

[dimitrios the samian]

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

[cegorach]

Hi Cegorach - thanks for the kind words. I have to admit that some of your ideas from PMTW have already helped me! :bow: So far most of the "hard work" that's gone into this has been second-hand - VikingHorde's map, and the HTW team's units, so I can't claim a lot of credit, I'm just mixing up the toys in my toybox so they can play together :laugh4:

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


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

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

Here are my thoughts.

Heavy chariot designed to break enemy line should :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Well... you might already know this all, but I had this idea - hopefully you might find something useful here.:2thumbsup:





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

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





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

There will be two'English' scenarios - Civil War and Armada Campaign.
The problem is the recent discoveries shattered my earlier plans and made me re-define the whole concept of the PMTW...
Currently I am doing some research to add new options to less attractive factions such as Montenegro - which means more time...
At least I managed to add a couple of new animations I managed to create.:juggle2:

[cegorach]

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

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

Good luck !

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


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

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



Regards Cegorach:egypt:

[dimitrios the samian]

Cegorach your comments & ideas to Macsen have ignited my interest in this mod !! .. I have just read over half a dozen pages and my appetite is ready .. Macsen Im itching to play this mod ! partial & unfinished (( those screenies look soo nice )) If at all possible would you at some stage be able to send over a copy of Bronze Age with any other files so I can reload it over HTW & begin familiarising myself with it ( :idea2: ) , As files for BA are now unavailable ,, Perhaps also Cegorach would also like the same files ,, I also noted that Pericles showed interest in BA by chiming in with comments on Sea-People ... (( He recently finished re-tweaking Fall Of Rome 3.1)) and maybe he is interested in helping out ? as he currently isn't involved in any Total War modifications .. What do you say Macsen ? When your ready & comfortable would you take the plunge and try a "Sub-forum" thread ? :yes: ... It's definately going to get more attention that way ,, As Cegorach said most of the hard-works been done :2thumbsup: ,, So generating interest leads to more people involved/interested then onto forming a team and perhaps one day soon release a mod as as big & popular as XL & Pike & Musket ,, DTS :beam:

[cegorach]

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

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

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

Researching unit rosters are always the most time consuming part.
It is about 2-3 days to add all units in the game, 1-2 days to balance them, 2-3 to write proper descriptions, 1 day to create techtrees, 2 days to set startpos and about 3 days for bug hunting.
Personally I don't believe in balancing the campaign - I usually have thrown realistic number of soldiers for each faction and let the game resolve the rest.
Funny I got opinions that PMTW is so well balanced after this intentionally careless approach.:juggle2:

[macsen rufus]

in time of 10-14 days :dizzy2:

I should point out I don't have days, only evenings.... :beam: I'm also not keen on time pressure, this is a recreation, I get all the time pressure I need from work (as well as the opportunity to do some research when the boss is out of the office :laugh4: ) A lot of the research is in the modding guides as well - I want to change some of the shields and weapons in the animations, eventually -- keep bronze weapons looking bronze etc. I'm still a bit rusty, but getting back up to speed. I'll also try and be a bit more organised in my approach this time (including more back ups OFF my hard-drive!)

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

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


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

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

More next week :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

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

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

Latest updates:

Egyptians in Battle - the sharp eyed will notice a new unit in the roster - Nubian archers! I found unused frames for this in the HTW "NegInf" animations - this unit has now made its way to the battlefield and works fine (though obviously not as good as Egyptian Archers :2thumbsup: )

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/battle2.jpg

Assyrian battle line

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/ass_battle2.jpg

Assyrian unit stats

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

A couple of new units:

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

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

[axel]

really nice mate i am itching to play this mod mate :2thumbsup:

[dimitrios the samian]

Rufus ,, Good to see all these new screenies ! nice :laugh4: ... Im just as keen as you on this mod so keep plugging away till you get it nice Tight & balanced ,, Ok a few questions ,, Can I be your beta tester on this one ?
Also I would like to do any research for you including giving you all the nice pics I collected all those years ago for Komninos when he was working on it with the boys ,, (( I have nice Syrians - Hyksos - Sea Peoples + more )) that would be ideal for review panels / parchments etc etc if required ,, Imagine if a Mesopotamian map was made for this one ! wow !! cause if memory serves me correct their are factions already made by Flip which stretch beyond the XL map ,, Would also be nice if we could get period campap peices as well ..
** MODERATOR ** PLEASE if possible move this thread to the SUB-FORUM :2thumbsup: ...
cheerio for now ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

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

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

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

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

I'd really like to make a Hebrew faction too (I've already given Palestine a valour-bonus for light slingers :laugh4: ) and I'd love the idea of producing wall-levelling trumpets at a siege engineer's workshop :laugh4: My first thoughts were to maybe dump "The Exodus" in Sinai, but it might be better to wait til approx 900BC and set up a proper Israelite kingdom in the "high" era. But then if I was to include Phoenicians we could be a bit short of provinces...

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

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

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

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

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

[dimitrios the samian]

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

[macsen rufus]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[macsen rufus]

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

PM on its way :2thumbsup:

[dimitrios the samian]

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

[macsen rufus]

For the castles, I intend to import all the HTW maps - at the moment it still has the XL maps throughout -- which leaves the great situation of 200 club-wielding nutters trying to hammer down the doors of a full-blown mediaeval castle with ballista towers :laugh4: If all goes well I'd like to make some hillfort maps for the western european factions, as that will be mostly terrain rather than models involved, lots of ramps and ditches and stockades.

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

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

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

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

[Pericles]

macsen rufus:

Excellent work so far :)

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

I also love playing ancient empire games such as HTW.

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

Cheers!

[Pericles]

Lots of pictures about ancient Egypt you might find useful:

http://images.google.ca/images?q=ancient+egyptian+pictures&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&um=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title

http://classroomclipart.com/cgi-bin/kids/imageFolio.cgi?direct=History/Ancient_Civilizations/Ancient_Egypt

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

[macsen rufus]

Hi Pericles,

thanks for the links, I'll go and have a little snoop around shortly :2thumbsup:

It definitely sounds like we need a map for further east, seems there's a lot of interest in Babylonia! For now I think Assyria is the eastern limit with the XL map (at least it has Mesopotamia on it :laugh4: )

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

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

[cegorach]

I would be careful with cathedral income buildings. Too many cause CTD when checking for province's income.
I don't know how many, but I suggest to pack the maximum number of thos you want to add and check for yourself.
Perhaps it is a good idea to keep some of those unique this way they will not appear all together in one place.


I had a look in my Osprey books from ancient period and made a caouple of notes.

So I might have some suggestions for usnits.

Egypt

a number of infantry used throwing sticks so perhaps a kind of skirmishing infantry with this weapon can be added - something like darts in VI I guess ( Ethipian army later used similar weapons with special sharpened boomerangs and many-edged knives).

Makhtu-aa close combat infantry might have two versions :
one - assault infantry without missiles,
two - same, but with throwing spears/javelins - but this one only allowed by 'dismounting' the first one, AI doesn't dismount units and it cannot use javelins properly anyway so recruitable shock infantry with throwing weapons would be wasted by it.

Stave bows - were cheaper and more popular + better in rainy weather conditions and were used by infantry together with later and more expensive composite bows.
Perhaps two types of archers to show it ?

Chariot runners - in my opinion a MUST in the mod.

Two versions with bows and javelins - perhaps only one recruitable and another 'dismountable' only ?
Were used to destroy enemy chariots and support egyptian ones so are perfect to cause fear in enemy chariotry without similar fears themselves. Could receive a charge and destroy the vehicles, though not without losses.
Should be very fast (for infantry)

Mittanian auxilia - Mariyannu hevavy, noble chariots with armoured crews and horses were used by egyptians too as allies after numerous conflicts with their state.

Chariots

Apparently heavier chariots appeared later after wars with Mitanni.
Remained quite light, but got some armour and got faster thanks to better use of horses.


Assyrians


3 levels of army.


Levies called Sab Sharry - peasant infantry archers, spearmen, slingers and shild bearers to protect archers.
Auxilia - cheap cannon fodder.
Bad or no armour + shields.

Kisir Sharruti - reformed army ( around 900 BC).

It included chariots and (later) cavalry).
Infantry was called Zuku sa sheppe - as the levies divided into all 4 infantry types.
Certainly armoured.

Royal guards -Qurubti sha shepe - all types of infantry and cavalry/chariots.
All armoured, but not havily. Disciplined elite of the army.




Assyrian chariots and cavalry.

According to the osprey about Assyrians cavalry started as either horse archers or lance armed support.

Both would act separately as different units.

Later they merged, got a little more armour and their steeds got some protection from cloth half-barding - a kind of extended cloth under the saddle and protecting steed's chest.

Something like a mini-skirt for a horse without protection over the head.


So the final Assyrian cavalry would be a hybrid lancer/archer.

As usual it might cause problems for the AI so perhaps it should be recrutable as light lancers with little arrows with dismountable version with larger number of arrows too ?


Assyrian chariots - simple heavy (getting heavier as the time passed) line breaker with archers aboard.



Overall I would propose the following roster

Sab Sharry - peasant infantry archers, spearmen, slingers and shield bearers to protect archers.


shield bearers either separate or in the same units as archers to give them some ranged protection.



Kisir Sharruti - reformed army

the core of the army - all infantry types, includes cavalry when it appears with reformed version in 'mini-skirt' in the last era ( 700 BC).

Perhaps should have chariots too ?


Royal guards -Qurubti sha shepe

guard infantry so harder to get ( maybe only in the royal court so unique building in one province ?)

Chariots for sure.

Cavalry for sure.

Some infantry too, but maybe without all choices.


I hope you will make the rosters ore diverse - the information might help.


Remember you can use 256 units and it DOESN'T include mounts, agents and ships.:2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Some useful ideas, cegorach, thanks :2thumbsup: I keep on seeing references to Osprey books -- think I might as well invest in some myself...

Couple of questions for you: chariot-runners sounds good - any idea what melee weapons? I guess spears but that's just a guess! I haven't implemented the "feared units" yet, but I like your suggestions about chariots (I think that's something I'll do when I have a full unit roster).

I'm not ready to do it quite yet, but I will need to look at the Steppes eventually (I'm still reading up on early history of horse riding) and think I might like to use some of your steppe cavalry animations etc from PMTW (nogay asker, budiak asker etc) if that's okay? There's a lot of "rebel grey" up there at the moment, so I need to set up appropriate units and possibly factions - obviously in later periods I'll put in the Scyths, but for the early era I'm not quite sure yet...

Meanwhile:

New unit -- tribal swordsmen - taking on a few axemen:

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

The first level of barbarian livestock farming:

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

More at lunchtime...

...

... I've added more offices for the Egyptians - basically using four levels of temple (Set, Ra, Ptah and Amun) to give office titles to the "Leader of (insert god) Division", and tieing in the morale upgrades and happiness bonuses. As these are unique, they'll only ever be built in Egypt, so foreign-raised troops will always have lower morale (max +1 morale from Shrines in foreign provinces).

I've succesfully moved the slingers into the new animation, so now there's a "spare" animation folder.

The unit roster will grow as research allows, and of course era divisions will be implemented. Meanwhile, I'm concentrating on early era. I also have a spare culture as yet, as none of the factions have been labelled "orthodox" - I might use this for the non-Indo-europeans in western Europe (Iberians, Etruscans and "Atlantic" culture areas, incuding British Isles, as rebels or possibly new factions).

I think that's all for today, cheers :2thumbsup:

[cegorach]

Some useful ideas, cegorach, thanks :2thumbsup: I keep on seeing references to Osprey books -- think I might as well invest in some myself...


They are very useful, though when doing some more in-depth research I discovered much more mistakes than I assumed in the beginning.

Still 'if there is no fish even a lobster is a fish' - old polish saying


Couple of questions for you: chariot-runners sounds good - any idea what melee weapons?

Spears were too large I think, so daggers of some sort are better. These guys eliminated horses and later dispatched immobilised crews alone or already crippled by their chariot mounted 'cousins'.



I might like to use some of your steppe cavalry animations etc from PMTW (nogay asker, budiak asker etc) if that's okay?

If you like it is not a problem.




ONE note I found that Egyptians used small units of cavalry as scouts so maybe little regiments of very fast horsemen can be added too ?

I guess 12 men units are all you will need - and of course available only from later periods.

[macsen rufus]

Cavalry is a difficult one, as the sources are all contradictory - from some things I've read, I believe Ramses II had cavalry scouts before Kadesh (not that he used them, of course :laugh4: :laugh4: ), and there are mentions of "Libyan horsemen" around that era. Same problems surround chariots -- many sources say they originated in Mesopotamia, but I believe the archaeology suggests they (like so many other equestrian developments) came from the steppes with the Aryans. Either way, we will need some steppe chariots :2thumbsup:

Certainly by my "high" era, Assyria will have cav archers, and possibly melee cav.

Likely eras:
early - 1275BC to 1100BC (175yrs)
high - 1100BC to 900BC (200yrs) - Iron becomes available, some cav
late - 900BC to 700BC (200yrs) - cavalry widespread, chariots in decline

575 years should be more than enough for even the slowest conquerors :beam:

I've done a bit more reading on chariot runners - pity most of the Google searches end up with WarHammer sites :clown: - but generally it seems bows and javelins were commonly used to disable the horses, then daggers or swords for close-quarter killing of crews. I think I'll stick to javelins. Apparently the Egyptians used their Sherdan troops for chariot running, so I will make my Sherdan mercenary unit dismountable into a light chariot runner with sword and javelin, and no shield. In their "heavy infantry" mode, I will keep sword and shield, but no javelin. For later periods there's also good evidence for "horse slasher" units - it will certainly add some variety to the standard spear/polearm options (good anti-cav attack, fear to horses, and less defence than spears).

More later ...

[axel]

Hi somme links:
http://www.sbh-gent.be/klassiek.htm#Anchor1.2
http://www.larp.com/hoplite/bronze.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sieges#Ancient
http://www.edupics.com/coloring-pages-pictures-book-clothes-146.htm
Maybe you cane do sommething with it

[macsen rufus]

Thanks, Axel! Some useful info in there :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi mate,
I hope so, ill be looking for more mate:2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi mate,
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/johnny_shumates_portfolio/default.aspx
http://home.zonnet.nl/postbus/Grechts.html
http://histoforum.digischool.nl/ict/aklink2b.htm#Sparta
If i find more ill post them:egypt:

[axel]

Hi mate s
Maps :http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/AncientWebPages/AncientL.html
http://www.bible-history.com/art/amaps.htm
http://members.aol.com/TeacherNet/Ancient.html
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/Articles/Maps/Maps_of_the_Ancient_World.htm
http://images.google.nl/images?q=ancient+maps&hl=nl&um=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title
Maybe this helps you with names for the campain map :egypt:

[axel]

Somme info

ca 1552-1085 vC Egypte 18/20 Dynasty
ca 1479-1425 vC Farao Toetmosis III on top of Egypte power
ca 1364-1347 vC Farao Achnaton
ca 1347-1337 vC Farao Toetanchamon
ca 1289-1224 vC Farao Ramses II
ca 1085-664 vC 21/25 Egypte Dynasty

ca 1600-1100 vC Myceners rules on the main lands of Greece capitol Mycene
ca 1100-800 vC Dark age`s of Greece

ca 1140 vC Feniciërs make kolonie`s: Utica in North-africa
ca 814 vC city of Carthago is made in North-africa

ca 1200 vC Mozes leads the Hebreeërs out of Egypte (There are 12 Tribes )
ca 1010 vC David became king of Israël after Saul
ca 960 vC Salomo built`s first tempel in Jeruzalem
ca 923 vC The death of salomo: His empire splits in 2
ca 722 vC The Assyriërs conquer Israël

ca 1285 vC Battle of Kadesh between Hettiëten and Egypte no winners
ca 1200 vC Hettitische empire kalaps under pressure of the sea people
ca 1000-612 vC Assyrische new empire takes lot of land
ca 883-859 vC King AssoernasirpalII built s a big paleis in Nimrod
ca 745-727 vC King Tiglatpileser conquers Israël
ca 721-705 vC King Sargon II Built s paleis in Khorsabad

ca 1595-1155 vC Kassieten rules over Babylon
ca 1126-1105 vC Coverment of Neboekadnessar
ca 731-626 vC Assyriërs and Chaldeeën fight over power Babylon

ca 900 vC The citystate Sparta is made of the people: the Doriërs
ca 800-500 vC The periode of Archaisch (dark age`s of Greece)
ca 775 vC First Olympic games
ca 750-550 vC A lot of Greek kolonie`s are made over the middlelands sea

ca 800 vC A lot of Celtic tribes move`s to the west of Europe them are little tribe s in forts on hills

ca 753 vC The beginning of Rome

ca 900 vC Kingdom of Kush in Nubië (now North of Soedan and North Nigeria)
in war with Egypte

Somme names i saw in a book:
Iberiërs = Spain
Kelts = West Europe (France, Belgium, A part of Germany )
Liguriërs = North Italy
Etrusken = Middle Italy
Italiërs = South Italy
Sicilië = Sicilië
Illyriërs = Balklands (Servie and Croatie and more)
Thraciërs = North Greece
Getae = Lands on the west of the Black sea
Scythen = Lands on the North of the Black sea ( horse people)
Phrygië = West Turkey
Libyërs = Egypte
Numidiërs = North africa ( Tunesie and Marroko )
Slaven = Middle Russia
Balten = North - west Russia
Germanen = From Denmark to Holland to North Germany and somme more )
Hittieten = East black sea and then moved to Turkey
Sarmaten = moved from the North - east of the lands of the Black sea

Well thats it for now i hope i did nt make any misstake s and i hope this will help you

Greetings:2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Quick update:

* Sherdan chariot-runners added (dismounted Sherdan mercs)
* Cimmerian horse archers added to steppe rebel provinces
* Celtic swordsmen and Slav warriors added to relevant factions
* Trade goods and resources placed on map
* Chariot dismounts added for some factions/chariot types
* Shaman agent added for pagans (emissary with faith propagation)
* Medianite cameliers now dismount to eastern archers
* Hittites, Assyrians and Egyptians start with historical kings (Muwatilis I, Adad-Nirari I, and Ramses II)

Found out some interesting things in the prod_files: units can come from different buildings - ie trainable in EITHER building A OR building B by using this in the building dependency column:

{ {buildingA},{buildingB} }

whereas using {buildingA, buildingB} means that BOTH buildings must be present to train that unit.

I've used this for making "muslim" emissaries in the "mosque" (Temple), and "catholic" ones in the Court of Law, and it seems to work :2thumbsup: Which means that I can have multiple tech-trees where different factions can train the same units but in different buildings.

The next problem I want to solve is to make iron-dependent buildings only available in High and Late periods, but there doesn't seem to be anyway to do it, other than stacking up the pre-requisite buildings and build times :thumbsdown: It's easy to make iron-dependent UNITS high/late only, but buildings don't have an era column... The only other option is to try to use "historical events" eg gunpowder becomes iron, or have some invention requirement, but I don't know how, yet.

Still loads to do, but it is quite playable so far, hope to have a BETA (or more probably a GAMMA) release before too long.

:2thumbsup:

Edit: also found some things which have caused problems with HTW - earliest possible start date is year 40 - any earlier than this you run the risk of kings with an age of -64,000 years! Needless to say they die the next turn, game over..... However, as I wanted to start in year 25 (to be 1275BC - year 0 =1300BC), I decided instead to change it to 125 (year 0 = 1400BC) and found that the old HTW habit of kings marrying commoners in the first two turns has now stopped. Obviously something to do with the early start date making the kings a bit too eager to procreate. Now there is TIME to go looking for foreign princesses. Yippee!

[dimitrios the samian]

Another great leap forward Macsen ! ... Your updates are inspiring ,, do check your email as I sent the first batch of Sea-People pics to you ,, I'll send you Syrians and some other goodies 2mrow ,, I look forward to beta-release when ready ,, cheers for now ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

Cheers, Dimitrios - safely downloaded the pics :2thumbsup:

A lot of the figures look just right to use the same animation as the Greek militia from HTW BA (which is fine as that's what I've already used for my Sherdan mercenaries!) I can feel a few new units coming on....

[cegorach]

Found out some interesting things in the prod_files: units can come from different buildings - ie trainable in EITHER building A OR building B by using this in the building dependency column:

{ {buildingA},{buildingB} }

whereas using {buildingA, buildingB} means that BOTH buildings must be present to train that unit.

I've used this for making "muslim" emissaries in the "mosque" (Temple), and "catholic" ones in the Court of Law, and it seems to work :2thumbsup: Which means that I can have multiple tech-trees where different factions can train the same units but in different buildings.

IN PMTW I have up to 5-6 different sets of required buildings - I don't know if there are any limits in this matter, actually, but 6 is perfectly enough I believe.



The next problem I want to solve is to make iron-dependent buildings only available in High and Late periods, but there doesn't seem to be anyway to do it, other than stacking up the pre-requisite buildings and build times :thumbsdown:


It is impossible. The only thing MTW VI engine really lacks - at least other flaws hurt less than this one...

[axel]

Hi mate
check out this link : http://home.swipnet.se:80/~w-63448/mesbro.htm
i think there s a lot of info here

[axel]

Hi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_states
http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/dynasties.htm

Historical empires
Early empires
Elamite Empire (c. 2700 BC - 539 BC)
Akkadian Empire (c. 2350 BC - 2150 BC)
Ur III Empire (c. 2100 BC - 2000 BC)
Babylonian Empire (c. 1900 BC - 1600 BC)
Egyptian Empire (1550 BC - 1070 BC)
Hittite Empire (c. 1460 BC - 1180 BC)
Israelite Empire (1050 BC - 920 BC)
Assyrian Empire (c. 900 BC - 612 BC)
Achaemenid Empire (Persian Empire, c. 550 BC - 330 BC)
Magadhan Empire (500 BC - 300/139 BC?)
Macedonian Empire (c. 338 BC - 309 BC)
Mauryan Empire (321 BC - 185 BC)
Seleucid Empire (323 BC - 60 BC)
Chinese Empire (221 BC - 1912) (Various inter-Imperial periods excluded)
Parthian Empire (c. 200 BC – 224)
Armenian Empire (190 BC - 165)
Roman Empire (27 BC - 476)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_empires
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_states

[dimitrios the samian]

Glad you like em Mac ,, I'll get those Assyrians , Egyptians , Syrians & other biblicals to you as well as the web address of where i got em ,, I also have some really great pictures of fortifications & such which are ideal for parchments / scripts & review panel bifs ,, You will get those as well ,, " Are you creating new figures/animations now ? " ... I have Paintshop Pro5 and would like to start helping out somehow/ if possible ,, If the threads & tools are available I would like to try my hand at making Campaign map peices , those Samurai ones are brilliant , I also liked Cegorach bifs in the review panel ,, cheers for now ,, DTS

[dimitrios the samian]

Great site Axel ,,, Really well laid out should the mod retrace its steps into the golden age of Mesopotamian ,, cheers ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

Morning all, I'm a bit groggy at work today -- was up til 3am trying to pin down a CTD after I changed my faction shields for the Germanic faction :wall: :wall:

Needless to say, I'd saved them in all the right folders, changed the colour indexing, checked bit depth, sizes, transparent colours, took them out of the startpos one-by-one etc, and finally found one file that hadn't been copied into every folder it was needed in....

Anyway -- here it is. The symbol is based on a religious (solar) motif from a Germanic Bronze age site found in Denmark

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


EDIT: a bit more on the Germanic faction

This is turning into one of my favourite pagan factions. You'll see from the image above that the King is not a chariot unit. There is no archaeological evidence for Germanic chariots in this era (although they did know about chariots as per the "Sun chariot" statuette). Their unit roster so far:

Tribal axemen (BG unit - valour bonus in Norway - starts as rebel province)
Slingers
Tribal warriors ('club-wielding nutters' ~D)
Tribal archers
Tribal spears (faction advantage - cheaper to train)
Tribal swordsmen
Berserkers (now with older, downgraded BRONZE swords)
Shaman (new AGENT - emissary with faith propagation)


Starting provinces are Sweden, Scania and Denmark. The names are a mix of German and Scandinavian with all obviously Biblical names removed. Pagan tech tree, which includes livestock farming and pagan shrines.

They're certainly different to the other pagan factions due to the lack of chariots, and a different fighting style is called for because of that. That's why they have the spear advantage. I'm not sure whether I'll keep the berserkers as a purely Germanic unit, as it seems there was a widespread and ancient "berserker tradition" amongst Indo-Europeans, and they even turn up as mercenaries/subject peoples in Assyrian records. For now, only the Germanics have them...

[axel]

Hi Dts
Wot do you meen mate?? change names or wrong links??
please tell me:2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Thanks for all the links and info everyone, I'm really getting some material together (last night I checked my "research" folder on the PC - 1.2GB, of assorted images, text, webpages etc :2thumbsup: )

@Cegorach - six options for training sounds very good! I really can't see me needing more than four at most (one for each culture) but it's good to know I can take it further if need be. I've also followed your lead on "dismounting" and renamed it to "Can change battle mode" - sounds so much better...

Something else I'm going to try is "battle mode chains" - if it works it could be real fun - ie Unit A --> Unit B, but what happens if also Unit B --> Unit C? I want to find out if the engine will allow Unit A --> Unit B --> Unit C. Okay, I'm not sure how many uses they might go to, but I was thinking in particular about chariots dismounting. What I would like is for Egyptian chariots --> Armoured archers --> Egyptian archers (ie can go a step further and take off their armour for the desert :beam: )

I currently have Eg chariots dismountable as Eg archers, but as chariot crews wore some armour, there really should be an armoured archer unit as well (which I'll need to make).

@Dimitrios: as far as unit animations go, I don't really have the tools or the time to make my own from scratch (I'm amazed at how many units Cegorach has made for PMTW :dizzy2: ) but what I can do fairly easily is add in new weapons and shields to exisiting bodies. (I have some ideas in store for the Celts, especially....)

Later ...

[cegorach]

@Cegorach - six options for training sounds very good! I really can't see me needing more than four at most (one for each culture) but it's good to know I can take it further if need be. I've also followed your lead on "dismounting" and renamed it to "Can change battle mode" - sounds so much better...

Something else I'm going to try is "battle mode chains" - if it works it could be real fun - ie Unit A --> Unit B, but what happens if also Unit B --> Unit C? I want to find out if the engine will allow Unit A --> Unit B --> Unit C. Okay, I'm not sure how many uses they might go to, but I was thinking in particular about chariots dismounting. What I would like is for Egyptian chariots --> Armoured archers --> Egyptian archers (ie can go a step further and take off their armour for the desert :beam: )

Nothing. It is either it or the other option - there is no chain of dismounts so it will be A or B - if B dismounts as well it matters not to A.


(I'm amazed at how many units Cegorach has made for PMTW :dizzy2: )

It wasn't me, but other people (strreety, duke John, YanTraken + stuff from other mods) , mainly YanTraken from Poland.

Of course I gave detailed instructionsin amny cases learning how to create the animations on my own actually.
Increadible how many options were not used at all by some paople.:juggle2:

[macsen rufus]

Morning Cegorach - hats off to Yan TRaken & the rest of the team anyway! You have certainly pushed the limits with unit types and novel ideas though which is a good part of the appeal of PMTW :2thumbsup:

I didn't actually get around to checking out the multiple dismount idea, but I suspected it would be as you said. I need to debug my Germanic princess names as they were causing CTDs last night - first noted as CTD when opening the "heirs" panel, then waited til my first princess emerged and a right-click on her caused another CTD, and the heirs panel still caused CTD. So I married her off, which worked fine... after which the heirs panel worked properly. All I can think is that if the princess "works" on the camp map, but I can't access her parchment or the heirs panel, it HAS to be related to the names, it's all that's left ..... or maybe ages? Hmmm, will have to think more. No the age must be fine as she emerged properly.

All of which meant that this new unit didn't get finished off last night, but it's coming along - the lowest of the low on Bronze Age battlefields - the Egyptian Djamu. These are mace-wielding militia units, with lousy stats, but available from musterfields everywhere. I hope by tonight I'll be able to give them shields, so they might stand more of a chance against these tower-shield spearmen :laugh4:

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

More later...

[macsen rufus]

Okay! I went down to the Pharaoh's armoury last night and gave them the design for the shield. It is my great pleasure to report that Djamu militiamen now enter battle duly protected:

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

Just for a bit of practice I used faction colours, and it seems to have worked - even with shading :beam:

Also re-did the review panel bits for them, so we don't have old-style urban militia images (although I haven't done the battle icon yet, as I haven't installed Ultimate Paint - I'll do all the new ones in a big batch as it's limited-use shareware).

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

And whilst I was playing around with shields and animations, thought I'd redo the Sherdan shield - as you can tell from the pics, I found out how the two-sided shields are implemented...

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

Back at lunchtime :2thumbsup:

[dimitrios the samian]

>> You are spoiling us Macsen !!!! << Looking forward with vigour & enthusiasm to beta-test these troops ,, More images coming your way tonite ,, cheers for now ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

@DTS - latest batch of pics received - there are some awesome forts in there :2thumbsup: And I might remake some details of the hittites, too.

Looking at those shields again, I'm not totally happy with the bosses, and I reckon I could also make it two-sided as well.... Then maybe get on with a few more Egyptian units - heavy spears springs to mind, and some kophesh swordsmen (need to make a new weapon for that). And I might redo the shield for the Assyrian spears, too.

I've also pretty much decided that for the "High" era (1100 - 900BC) I shall be including the Phoenicians and Kingdom of Israel. By 800BC Carthage had been established, so the Phoenicians really need to be included...

The Minoans will be removed as they'd gone by 1300BC, and I will use their slot for Alisya (Cyprus) and see if they can avoid becoming Hittite vassals this time around :laugh4: I had a little play with the 'Minoans' on Cyprus, and it is a viable start position, though not without challenges. Its historical role as a major exporter of copper will play a significant part for that faction.

Thanks to some of Axel's links I have loads of info on Egyptian administration, and some good material for titles and offices.

More later, lunch break over...

[axel]

macsen rufus,
It looks great :2thumbsup:
you let me know if i cane do sommething more mate!:2thumbsup:
I am glad i could help out:egypt:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel, yes, keep the links coming - saves me a lot of time on Google during my lunch break :beam:

What I really need is a good selection of Egyptian male portraits for Generals (I've got plenty of Pharaohs now) and a few more for princesses.

Thanks everyone for the support and encouragement - it will be worth it!
Cheers - I'm taking Saturday off work this weekend, so an extra 24hrs modding time!!!

[axel]

Hi mate
ill trye to find somme potraits and links mate:yes:

[axel]

Hi mate
http://www.tigtail.org/TIG/L_View/TVM/E/Ancient/Egypt/Egypt-artifacts/egypt-4.3.0.greco-roman.html
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html
http://showcase.netins.net/web/ankh/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Kingdom
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/pharaohs.htm
http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/timelines/topics/army.htm
http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/glossary.htm
http://classroomclipart.com/cgi-bin/kids/imageFolio.cgi?direct=History/Ancient_Civilizations/Ancient_Egypt/War_and_Armies
http://classroomclipart.com/cgi-bin/kids/imageFolio.cgi?direct=History/Ancient_Civilizations/Ancient_Egypt
http://www.geocities.com/modernegyptianart/index_eng.htm
http://www.ancient-egypt.org/
http://www.angelfire.com/me3/egyptgoddess/
Ill will find somme more mate

[axel]

Hi mate
somme new links:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos
somme nice pics in here as well http://touregypt.net/featurestories/hyksos.htm
Here s a list of kings but it is in dutch mate:

DERTIENDE DYNASTIE 1795-na 1650 v.CHR
Ca. 70 vorsten van wie de meest genoemde in de onder-
staande lijst staan
Hor (Awaibre) {geen data bekend}
Chendjer (Oeserkare) {geen data bekend}
Sobechotep III (Sachemrasewadjtawi) {geen data bekend}
Neferhotep I (Chasechemre) {geen data bekend}
Sobechotep IV (Chanefrerre) ,ca. 1725 v.CHR
VEERTIENDE DYNASTIE ,ca. 1750-ca.1650 v.CHR
Groepen minder belangrijke heersers, waarschijnlijk uit
dezelfde tijd als de konigen uit de dertiende dynastie
TWEEDE TUSSEN-TIJD ,ca. 1650-ca.1550 v.CHR
VIJFTIENDE DYNASTIE (HYKSOS) ,ca. 1650-ca.1550 v.CHR
Salitis {geen data bekend}
Chyan (Seuserenre) ,ca. 1600 v.CHR
Apepi (Aaoeserre) ,ca. 1555 v.CHR
Chamoedi {geen data bekend}
ZESTIENDE DYNASTIE ,ca. 1650-ca.1550 v.CHR
Onbelangrijke Hyksos-heersers, uit dezelfde tijd als de
koningen van de vijftiende dynastie
ZEVENTIENDE DYNASTIE ,ca. 1650-ca.1550 v.CHR
Verscheidene heersers gebaseerd in Thebe, van wie de
bekendste hieronder staan
Antef (Noebcheperre) {geen data bekend}
Ta'a I (Senachtenre) {geen data bekend}
Ta'a II (Sekenenre) ,ca. 1560 v.CHR
Kamose (Wadjcheperre) ,ca. 1555-ca.1550 v.CHR
NIEUWE RIJK ,ca. 1550-ca.1069 v.CHR
ACHTTIENDE DYNASTIE ,ca. 1550-ca.1295 v.CHR
Ahmose (Nebpehtyre) ,ca. 1550-ca.1525 v.CHR
Amenhotep I (Djeserkare) ,ca. 1525-ca.1504 v.CHR
Thoetmoses I (Aacheperkare) ,ca. 1504-ca.1492 v.CHR
Thoetmoses II (Aacheperenre) ,ca. 1492-ca.1479 v.CHR
Thoetmoses III (Menchpererre) ,ca. 1479-ca.1425 v.CHR
Hatsjepsoet (Maatkare) ,ca. 1473-ca.1458 v.CHR
Amenhotep II (Aacheperoere) ,ca. 1427-ca.1400 v.CHR
Thoetmoses IV (Mencheperoere) ,ca. 1400-ca.1390 v.CHR
Amenhotep III (Nebmaatre) ,ca. 1390-ca.1352 v.CHR
Amenhotep IV-Achnaton
(Nefercheperoerawaenre) ,ca. 1352-ca.1336 v.CHR
(Nefernefroeaton (Semenechkare) ,ca. 1338-ca.1336 v.CHR
Toetanchamon (Nebcheperoere) ,ca. 1336-ca.1327 v.CHR
Eye (Chepercheperoere) ,ca. 1327-ca.1323 v.CHR
Horemheb (Djesercheperoere) ,ca. 1323-ca.1295 v.CHR
NEGENTIENDE DYNASTIE ,ca. 1295-ca.1186 v.CHR
Ramses I (Menpehtyre) ,ca. 1295-ca.1294 v.CHR
Seti I (Menmaatre) ,ca. 1294-ca.1279 v.CHR
Ramses II (Oesermaatre Setepenre) ,ca. 1279-ca.1213 v.CHR
Merneptah (Baenre) ,ca. 1213-ca.1203 v.CHR
Amenmesse (Menmire) ,ca. 1203-ca.1200 v.CHR
Seti II (Oesercheperoer Setepenre) ,ca. 1200-ca.1194 v.CHR
Siptah (Achenra Setepenre) ,ca. 1194-ca.1188 v.CHR
Koningin Tawosret (Sitrameritamoen) ,ca. 1188-ca.1186 v.CHR
TWINTIGSTE DYNASTIE ,ca. 1186-ca.1069 v.CHR
Sethnachte (Oeserchaure Meryamoen) ,ca. 1186-ca.1184 v.CHR
Ramses III (Oesermaatre Meryamoen) ,ca. 1184-ca.1153 v.CHR
Ramses IV (Hekamaatre Setepenamoen) ,ca. 1153-ca.1147 c.CHR
Ramses V (Oesermaatre Setepenre Meryamoen) ,ca. 1147-ca.1143 v.CHR
Ramses VI (Nebmaatre Meryamoen) ,ca. 1143-ca.1136 v.CHR
Ramses VII (Oesermaatre Setepenre Meryamoen) ,ca. 1136-ca.1129 v.CHR
Ramses VIII (Oesermaatre Achenamoen) ,ca. 1129-ca.1126 v.CHR
Ramses IX (Neferkare Setepenre) ,ca. 1126-ca.1108 v.CHR
Ramses X (Chepermaatre Setepenre) ,ca. 1108-ca.1099 v.CHR
Ramses XI (Menmaatre Setepenptah) ,ca. 1099-ca.1069 v.CHR
DERDE TUSSEN-TIJD ,ca. 1069-.ca.747 v.CHR
EENENWINTIGSTE DYNASTIE ,ca. 1069-ca.945 v.CHR
(TANIS)
Smendes (Hedjcheperre Setepenre) ,ca. 1069-ca.1043 v.CHR
Anemenmesoe (Neferkare) ,ca. 1043-ca.1039 v.CHR
Psoesennes I [Pasebachaennioet]
(Aacheperre Setepenamoen) ,ca. 1039-ca.991 v.CHR
Amenmope (Oesermaatre Setepenamoen) ,ca. 993-ca.984 v.CHR
Osorkon de Oude (Aacheperre Setepenre) ,ca. 984-ca.978 v.CHR
Siamoen (Netjrcheperre Setepenamoen) ,ca. 978-ca.959 v.CHR
Psoesennes II [Pasebachaennioet]
(Ticheperoere Setepenre) ,ca. 959-ca.945 v.CHR
TWEEENTWINTIGSTE DYNASTIE
(Libische dynastie of van Boebastis) ,ca. 945-ca.715 v.CHR
Sjesjonk I (Hedjcheperre Setepenre) ,ca. 945-ca.924 v.CHR
Osorkon I (Sechemcheperre) ,ca. 924-ca.889 v.CHR
Sjesjonk II (Hekacheperre Setepenre) ,ca. 890 v.CHR
Takelot I ,ca. 889-ca.874 v.CHR
Osorkon II (Usermaatre Setepenamoen) ,ca. 874-ca.850 v.CHR
Takelot II (Hedjcheperre Setepenre Amoen) ,ca. 850-ca.825 v.CHR
Sjesjonk III (Oesermaatre) ,ca. 825-ca.773 v.CHR
Pami (Oesermaatre) ,ca. 773-ca.767 v.CHR
Sjesjonk V (Aacheperre) .ca. 767-ca.730 v.CHR
Osorkon IV (Aacheperre Setepenamoen) ,ca. 730-ca.715 v.CHR
DRIEENTWINTIGSTE DYNASTIE
(TANIS/LIBIE) ,ca. 818-ca.715 v.CHR
Diverse gelijktijdig voorkomende lijnen heersers in Heracleo-
polis Magna, Hermopolis Magna, Leontopolis en Tanis, van
wie drie hieronder staan
Petoebastis I (Oesermaatre) ,ca. 818-ca.793 v.CHR
Sjesjonk IV ,ca. 780 v.CHR
Osorkon III (Oesermaatre Setepenamoen) ,ca. 777-ca.749 v.CHR
VIERENTWINTIGSTE DYNASTIE ,ca. 727-715 v.CHR
Bakenrenef (Bokchoris) ,ca. 727-ca.715 v.CHR

http://home-3.tiscali.nl/~meester7/engindex.html
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/seti1.htm
http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/glossary.aspx?id=344
http://www.carlos.emory.edu/COLLECTION/
http://www.omnibusol.com/anegypt.html
http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/foreignrelations/war.html#1
http://members.aol.com/skyelander/celts5.html
http://www.egyptartstore.bigstep.com/category.html?UCIDs=1027246
http://www.egyptartsite.com/old.html
http://www.egyptartsite.com/mapindex.html

Its verry strange i cant find no names from acient (egypt) generals, only a list of rank:
- De farao
- High councelers, priests and Generals
- soldiers and low councelers
- marketworkers and work people
- Farmers
- Slaves

So i hope it helps a bit :2thumbsup:

[dimitrios the samian]

Wow ... Plenty of sites there alex ,,,, well done mate ....

[axel]

Hi mate
yes i hope they are usefull aswell mate, every thing to help mate :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi again
I found a link with potraits:
http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/portraiture/4d.htm
i found a forum i will get a pass word and trey to log in and ask more info ill post it if i get somme mate

[dimitrios the samian]

Hi Macsen ,, Just realised the Sea People used Warwagons probably twice to three times the size of a chariot ,, Perhaps Cegorach can assist or give permission to reskin his awesome looking peices from the PMTW mod ...What you say Cegorach ?? ,,,cheers ,, DTS

[cegorach]

Take what you want.;)

You will discover that the animations are pretty simple in design, but ancient re-design will be rather dificult comparing to the original, at least.:book:

[dimitrios the samian]

Thanks Cegorach ,, Im sure Macsen will consider it ,, Is it possible to use Rome TW portraits , parchments , images ? As I have seen mods using MTW portraits .... cheers ,, DTS

[axel]

Hi
Here mate: http://euler.slu.edu/Dept/Faculty/bart/Ancient_Egypt_Page.html
If you press kings and queens you will get pics of them :2thumbsup:
http://www.osirisnet.net/e_map.htm
http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/saqqara/homepage.htm
here somme good potraits: http://www.suziemanley.com/famous_egyptians/index.html
http://www.mmc.gov.eg/History/gg1.htm
Wel thats it for now mate`s more will comme :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi
I got one name who wos a general his name is : Horemb he became farao later i think?

[axel]

Hi
A other name`s popt up from the new age: Ahmose, son of Ebana. He became admiral later on. Ahmose, Pen-nekhbet wos an generaal.

And under Tuthmosis III there where a fue generals most importend one wos Generaal Djehuty. He wos a legend in the story of conquering Joppa.

Here you see a fue graves from armyleaders:http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/nobles/e_nob1.htm

Amenemose, Tjanuny, Amenemhab en Nebamon where all soldiers.

The grave in Saqqara of Horemheb its a tressuere of information about the army atthe end of the 18e dynasty (ca 1350 BC) here is a link of it: http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/saqqara/horemheb/e_horemheb_surface.htm

In the periode of Ramesses de Grote (ca 1250 BC) a fue of his sons hade a titel of a generaal. look at website: http://euler.slu.edu/Dept/Faculty/bart/Ancient_Egypt_Page.html

so thats it for now mate`s:egypt:

[macsen rufus]

Looks like you've all been busy over the weekend! :2thumbsup:

I've got a good list of Egyptian names, and as many of them were compound names, easy to make more (eg Tut-ankh- means "living image of...", so just add different god names at the end for lots of new names...) I have made a few more princess portraits from last week's gleanings, so I currently have 5 Egyptian princesses, and I have more files to plunder yet. Shouldn't need too many for princesses.

Over the weekend I've added a new building to the tech-tree - woodworker - level 1 is "Carpenter" - prerequisite for spearmaker and bowyer (and I will also make it pre-req for shipbuilidng as well), level 2 "Wheelwright" - required for chariots.

I've also used bit of a work-around for the metalsmith line to accommodate bronze and iron. Originally the HTW BA metalsmith had four levels, with copper or iron resource requirement. I've split this into two buildings:

Level 1 "Metalsmith" - available everywhere (w +1)
Level 2 "Metalsmith's workshop" - upgrade which requires copper mine (for improved bronze weapons only - w +2)

Other building:
Level 3 "Metalsmith's Guild" - requires iron - (w +3) (metalsmith as pre-requisite, but not a direct upgrade)
Level 4 "Master Metalsmith" - (w +4)

Build requirements are pretty high for the second line, so it will be a while before "iron" weapons come on-line. This also more accurately models the Bronze Age / Iron Age transition because iron weapons were available in this time frame, though pretty rare. After all, it wasn't a case of one day all bronze, next day all iron :beam: The Hittites were using iron before Qadesh, for instance.

I still have the option now to have iron-specific units available in the "High" era (but let's get the early era sorted first!)

I've also done a bit of tweaking on the campmap review panel so it's an all-bronze background. Other changes I'm making: no mercenaries except as trainable units (I got fed up of Nubian archers turning up in the Baltic :no: ). I've set all units as "not mercenary" in the unit_prod, but need to get rid of the "shady meeting place" buildings to remove the mercenary capability from the buildings. "Mercenary" units will be available on a homeland & faction limited basis (eg Sherdan available in a few coastal provinces with swordsmith + port, for Egyptians and Libyans only - remember the Libyans hired Sherdan earlier than Egypt did, and Cimmerian cavalry available to anyone in Khazar and Lesser Khazar with quite high build requirements, and VERY expensive)

I finally remembered the .worksundays. cheat code which makes testing new buildings and tech tree changes a lot quicker.

I've made a few startpos changes, with faction "capitals" being a bit more built up. Addition of new buildings (like woodworker) make it slower process building up the conquered provinces, and gives more need to produce militia-style troops for garrison (slingers, tribal warriors, djamu etc).

A few new review-panel graphics and info pics for new units (I must say I'm pretty pleased with all the Egyptian ones :beam: )

Battle flags straightened out so they all match the faction shields properly - there will probably be more redesigns and faction colour changes, but for now at least they are consistent.

I took a quick run as the Libyans, and realised a few cock-ups in their unit roster (mostly gave them a load of units not trainable in their homeland!) so have started making new units for them, starting with a Libyan spear unit which works okay in battle, and makes it worth them building a spearmaker now :laugh4:

Libyans so far:

Light chariots (BG unit) - javelins
Nubian archers (Cyrenaica only)*
Nubian spears (Cyrenaica only)*
Sherdan mercenaries (Cyrenaica only)*
Libyan spearmen (Cyrenaica valour bonus) [Much tougher than Nubian spears]
Slingers

*province limits are only regarding starting lands, may be available in other conquered provinces

Once they have conquered the appropriate provinces they will also get access to eastern (Syrian) archers, and camels (now re-named as 'Aramaean cameliers', by the way).

This roster really needs bulking out, but I need more basic research on Libyan armies of the 13thC BC. Also Berber names (their current King is called Aethelstan, a HTW hang over :laugh4: ).

I was planning to have more screenies for you, but it was late on Sunday night when I realised we had changed clocks to summer time and I didn't have enough time left - hopefully tomorrow.

Another thing I'm working on is a little spreadsheet to allow for rescaling of shields without having to rewrite all of the positioning co-ordinates one by one (48 lines of 4 pairs of coordinates for EACH type of action....) Should be pretty straightforward once I get the geometry right!

Okay that's enough for now...

Edit: @Axel - I can understand a little Nederlands, but it doesn't go much beyond "Een witbier, alst u blieft... dank u wel..." I studied German at school, and what bits of Nederlands aren't like English, are more like German. Put the two together, and you can work out a lot. And I worked in Zeeland for a few months recently, but I've already forgotten most of what I learnt there (too much witbier....) I can even say "S'cheveningen" properly :laugh4:)

[axel]

LOOOOOOOOOOOool witbier ye thats nice mate, i hade the same problem when i came to Holland lol scheveningen and acht (eigth) now both holland and UK talking and writting sucks somme times lol hehehehe

yes mate i have been busy lol made a lot of hours collecting info
Do you need more info mate??? and if so tell me wot info you need mate and ill find out :2thumbsup: :egypt:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel - I've still not looked at all the latest links yet, so I've got plenty to get on with for now. I just found a nice list of Berber (or Amazigh) names for the Libyans, so that one's sorted - I'll copy them across tonight and no more King Aethelstan :laugh4: It's amazing the sort of stuff you discover researching something as innocent as names - did you know in Morocco berber names are banned, you have to use Arabic - even though berbers are some 60% of the population - meh, it's so easy to get sidetracked on the internet!

More tomorrow...

[axel]

Hi mate
No mate i didn t know marroco berbers are banned i alway s tought berber where a nick name for people on the hills of marroco
Do you have enough pics ????

[dimitrios the samian]

Great progress Macsen ,, I like a lot of the things you are going to implement ,, about those Syrians they really weren't that versatile in their makeup or so the scholars tell us but I think adding extra units for them as well is a good thing ! I mean if i was a Libyan or Syrian king and my enemies had armoured spearmen and chariots why the hell would I only have slingers and skirmishers runing around disorganised and half naked ?? ... Im sure it isn't as the DBA & DBM army lists say it is ....anyway this is why this time period is such a good one as a little flexibility and imagination can make for one awesome experience ,, talk again soon about more bifs & eye candy ,, cheers ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

Morning all, well I was about to post up some new screenshots, but photobucket is down for maintenance just now.

I've been working on the Libyans, so a quick summary:

* Libyans now have Amazigh (berber) names, and a good long list of them too (more princess names than most factions have for male names, so far...)
* New unit: Amazigh horsemen (light cav with javelins, small units)
* Nearly-new unit: allowed Sherdan chariot runners as a trainable unit for Libyans only (Cyr. + Tunisia)

Also swapped the slingers around, so they are "heavy" type by default, dismountable to "light" type. This is because the AI rarely (never?) dismounts troops and heavy slingers have flaming missile capabilities for sieges - would put AI at a disadvantage in the early game. The light slinger has more ammo, more range, but no flaming or armour-piercing missiles.

Mercenary system now disabled fully.

Screenies to follow...


EDIT: And here they are:

Wheelwright info:

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

Libya invades Egypt!

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

Libyan army info:

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

The Libyan battle line, showing Libyan spears, Sherdan runners and Sherdan mercenaries:

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

Amazigh cavalry in action:

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

The results - Ramses II taken prisoner!!

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

[Pericles]

Brilliant work!

I have always liked MTW's look when it comes to gaming the ancient periods: the parchment, pics and map....

This mod will be a welcome addition to my gaming mojo.... :yes:

[axel]

Looking great mate woowie really nice:2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

I really need to redo the battle uniticons, but I've finally installed UltimatePaint, so i should be able to get on with that once I've read up the appropriate threads from the Alchemists sub-forum... And Axel, I found quite a lot of useful portraits and a good Egyptian name list from your links, so I reckon the Egyptians are about sorted now :2thumbsup:

BTW King Mazigh is not a real historical character like Ramses, he is a mythical/legendary "first ancestor" acknowledged by the Amazigh peoples, sort of a berber Abraham, I guess. Luckily the namelist I found for Amazigh gave many of the meanings, so I've chosen ten names that sound appropriate, things like "Lion", "The First", "The Great One" etc etc

Dare I say it, but I might be able to release a beta version soon...

[axel]

Hi mate
Ok if you need more of other army`s like the celts or other country`s, you just say it and ill find more :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

I spent a bit of time last night updating my Egyptian names and portraits - could still use a few more portraits for generals (I've got about 20 so far). Princesses are okay, about 15 of those. When it came to inputting my male names, I found out I'd got 500 of them! Even so, when I started a new campaign to test the names I still ended up with two generals in the first couple of years with the same name :inquisitive:

Before I can make a beta release I will need to clean out my directories and remove loads of extraneous stuff - the game folder currently contains over 2Gb - don't know where that all came from! But there must be heaps of unnecessary image files I can remove, and old MTW stuff that can be safely edited out of some of the txt files.

[axel]

Hi mate
I got a mail from Anneke she`s the maker and designer and artist from this site : http://euler.slu.edu/Dept/Faculty/bart/Ancient_Egypt_Page.html
and this is wot she made maybe you cane use them? :http://euler.slu.edu/Dept/Faculty/bart/Paintings.html
http://euler.slu.edu/Dept/Faculty/bart/Paintings-2.html
really nice wot Anneke made

more links of copyright-free fotos :http://www.egyptarchive.co.uk/html/index.html
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ancient_Egypt

On Anneke`s website she got by every Farao also a warleader`s named!!
There s also a godist named Neith she also hade here connections with war here s a pic : http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/nit.htm

Anath whase a war godist (virgin warrior goddess). Ramses de Grote named his oldest dauther Bintanath after here

Queen Hatshepsut lead here own army in combat at the battle of Nubia But wos it a real war???

Monthu en Anhur (also Onuris named )where importend war gods.

I most thanks Anneke from most information she`s wonderfull :2thumbsup:

I hope you got enough for now mate if not let me know

[macsen rufus]

Some very nice pics there, Axel :2thumbsup:

I've now started on thinning out the unnecessary stuff to get to a beta-release, but there's still over 2GB of it left! Hopefully a lot of that will not need any replacing so needn't go into the install pack. Remember this install will go onto XL, so make sure you have a clean install of that first...

[axel]

Hi mate
Will do you take your time i am here if you need me :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Last night I managed to get the HTW maps imported - did the castles first, as I had finally had enough of trying to beat down Mediaeval citadels with blunts sticks :laugh4: They work fine, or at least the ones I tested. The field battle maps have also been carried across, and although they work, there is a small problem whch will take forever to sort out - the pre-battle screen pics (the little one that scrolls around between the two generals) are all messed up. Some are missing, so the little pic is black, and some are attributed to the wrong map, so the preview is misleading. BUT THE BATTLES WORK, so it's just an aesthetic fault really. Not something to hold up the beta for - I know it needs fixing, I know pretty much HOW to fix it (remember all the file names I changed when I imported the maps.....), but it will take ages to actually do it.

[axel]

Hi mate
Thats good news, you take your time good things alway s takes time :2thumbsup: a little question is the mod 2 gig or is your MTW and mod together 2 gig??:egypt:

[macsen rufus]

The whole modded MTW folder is about 2GB, so a lot of that won't need to be included in the install pack, you'll already have it. I've already cut it down from 2.6GB!

BTW on the maps, for the field battles I've ADDED the HTW ones, so the originals are still in there. This means there will be much more randomness of battle fields (I think the 'flat inland' range has 50 maps in it now). I also need to edit a few bits of border info in the start pos as HTW has some map types that MTW / XL doesn't have (such as inland mountain river and some coastal river types) - it's no good having the maps if they never get called on :beam:

[dimitrios the samian]

Superb progress Macsen ,, I'll be making space on my HD over the next few days ..... :beam:

[macsen rufus]

Well, spent a lot of last night playing testing the battle maps, and I'm glad to report the HTW ones are nicely interspersed with the originals for plenty of variety. I'm even discovering maps I'd never even encountered whilst playing HTW itself :2thumbsup: The lack of and incorrect pre-battle images is a bit of a niggle, but as none of the maps have caused a CTD so far, I think everything will work out fine.

I do want to put some time aside to sort out the castles and upgrades situation, as there are too many levels of stone and not enough of wood. And I also have some particular castle maps I want to make when I have worked out how. Let's just say they'll be a little more "in period" and kind of interesting :beam: Though that will probably be post-beta....

Other changes: I went over the region attributes last night, although I'll probably revisit a few of the details again. I have "turned down" the farming income considerably and changed a lot of the rebelliousness settings. One thing you will notice when playing, is that if you make assumptions about provinces based on previous MTW/XL experience, you may be surprised. Don't expect to find iron in all the same places or assume that certain provinces will be cash-cows like they are in mediaeval campaigns. It should keep you on your toes, strategically.

I've been thinking a lot about the Sea Peoples recently, and the historic "Catastrophe". Now the academic sources all have varying views on what the catastrophe was, but I recently went off to Amazon and bought Drew's "The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200BC" (so many Google searches came up with reviews, quotes, & references to this book I thought it must be worth a few quid!). It's a little bit erudite (he insists on quoting various researchers and authors in their original language, so a smattering of German, French and Italian really help!) but very well argued, so I will probably base my version of history around his. Which does mean that certain orthodoxies may be overturned (eg Mycenaean chariots almost certainly WERE archer chariots just like in the Middle East). I'm still not convinced that the Sherdan came from Sardinia though :beam:

So, what I'm proposing is that the High Era will be brought a little earlier in game terms (ca 1200BC) and introduce a "Sea Peoples" faction, with a few scattered provinces, each of which produces certain troops eg Sherdan from Sardinia - even if I don't quite believe it, game mechanics impose certain limits which have to be overcome somehow :laugh4: , Lukka from Nicaea (closest approximation to old Lykia), Sicily for Shekelesh etc. It would be REALLY nice if they could be made to emerge, Golden Horde style, but I think the best we can have really is a High Era startpos that will introduce them as a new faction. From their start position, I intend to give them a big army, a big navy and tiny income, and barbarian_raider personality. That should set them off after the riches of the Middle East from the outset. Obviously by High Era the other factions will be a little better developed, so hopefully it should still be possible to fight them off with skill, care and dedication....

OKAY, that's all for now, I really should get on and do some work ~D

[axel]

Hi mate
It sounds and looks real good :2thumbsup: you been really buzzy

[western]

I'm following this with a lot of interest. Sea Peoples are a great idea for High - should make for quite a different gameplay from early (and make good use of all those island provinces). Any thoughts for Late? My history that far back gets a bit hazy, and the map doesn't suit things that were small scale or happening too far East. But two periods is already twice what I hoped this Mod would give us.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Western, thanks for your input, nice to know there's more interest out there :2thumbsup:


My history that far back gets a bit hazy

Don't worry - everybody's history that far back is hazy - even the experts'!

Trying to sift the supportable evidence from the orthodox grand assumptions is nigh on impossible, but the view I'm taking is influenced by Drews' book as mentioned above. He's changed my mind on a few things.... I do now accept that, okay, maybe the Sherdan did come from Sardinia, the Shekelesh from Sicily etc. Although it seems like these were really just small mercenary components fighting alongside Libyans and Philistines (ref Medinet Habu stelae) rather than a huge army in their own right. But still, for game play purposes I think I'll stick with the original plan :beam:

Late era will be different again, I'm not entirely decided on what exactly will feature yet, as the precise dates aren't finalised. I'm tending towards:

Early: 1275BC to 1200BC
High: 1200BC to 980BC
Late: 980BC to 700??

So Late will include Solomon's Israelite kingdom, Neo-Hittites states and Neo-Assyrian empire, and the Greeks will have developed a little bit - I still need to check appropriate dates, but I guess this is the "Geometric" era of Greek history, so the appropriate HTW units are already available. Also the Phoenicians will be well established (I might have to pretend that Carthage was a founded a little earlier than it really was.

Progress over the weekend:

* Quite a few province and castle names changed (eg Ugarit, Canaan, Phoenicia, Etruria, Assur, Hatti, Colchis + more)
* Rebel 'factions' renamed (no more Jacquerie in Bronze Age France :beam: )
* Finally worked out why the era description wasn't showing (a 'd' where there should have been a 'D' - arrgh!)
* A few border details changed so that certain unique HTW maps get played in suitable places (inland mountain river now defends Hatti to north, west and south to represent the Halys river)
* An hour-long struggle with CTDs after trying to place a resource as a trade good :furious3:

It's going to be impossible to remove all anachronisms, as so much is truly "prehistoric" in the pre-literate parts of the world, but I guess we're just going to have to live with a few compromises.

Finally:

Here's the results of importing the HTW castles - I think this assault looks a lot more like Bronze Age Norway than the old MTW maps:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000006.jpg



https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000007.jpg

[western]

Great looking pics Macsen. When it comes to factions, have you thought about the Cimmerians for Late? Chased off the steppe by the Scythians and then migrated down through the Caucasus, fought the Assyrians around 690 and finished up 60 or so years later in Lydia (ie Nicaea in MTW terms). Check it out on Wikipedia - could make a good use of S. Russia and Anatolia, and should be possible to clone from the Scythians (says he glibly).

[axel]

Hi mate`s
Pics look really great macsen

[dimitrios the samian]

Nice thoughts Western ..... Im sure Macsen will consider it perhaps ,, I figure he still has more unused skins leftover from the Bronze Age Expansion that he can actually use on this upcoming mod on the XL map ..... What we really need is a Mesopotamian Map !! So the HTW Persians can be used / cloned as well ..... perhaps even Indians of the Indus Valley too !! .... just dreaming for now :idea2:

[macsen rufus]

The Cimmerians are present as rebels (ie province rebel name) for now - thinking of turning them into a faction for high/late - meanwhile there are some Cimmerian HAs available in Khazar etc - mostly to prevent the Thracians steamrolling the steppes. Strictly speaking they're probably proto-Cimmerian, but some of my sources suggest the language group was already present of the lower steppe by this period. Potential anachronism, but in gameplay terms fills another dead spot on the map :beam: And yes, the HTW units include some Scythians, which is what I'm turning into Cimmerians.

Last night I got stuck into the map editor, and have made significant progress towards a new castle type. Basically tested the concept by altering an HTW map, so now I know it works I can make my own from scratch, but more true to the original idea. I managed to test it in a custom battle by exporting it in into MTW-VI (for some reason custom battles don't work in the Bronze Age, bit of a pain....) and it played quite well with Irish, Vikings, Northumbrians and Picts, anyway! The second type I'm planning will be a cake-walk compared to this one. If they're ready in time for a beta release they will be included, but I might have a castles expansion pack later instead, we'll see...

I was also tidying up some little details around faction shields as well (some of them are still distinctly 2D looking, so I'm putting on shading and resaving them, so they look more like the rest). Oh, I love Photoshop :beam:

So what I propose:

* I'll finish off faction shields and colours (too many green factions)
* cut out as much unused stuff as possible
* make a few more tech tree changes
* set up a start leader for the remaining factions (I still have four King Bendidoras out there!)
* set up separate names for each faction
* maybe... finish off one or two new castle maps
* maybe... tidy up the front-end

.... and then I think I'll be ready to do a beta release :2thumbsup:

[dimitrios the samian]

Yipee !!!! :dizzy2: A NEW MAP :beam: .... I have faith in you Macsen ,, I like the rest of us popping in & out firstly want this to come out & then ........ well why not a new map centred around the Euphrates & further expansions backwards into the golden era of Assyria , Babylon & all those others "if it takes your fancy ofcourse ",, Ok - One question out of curiosity ,, How have you factored in the Mongol Horde event ? that takes place ?

[macsen rufus]

@DTS - hmm, how to let down gently -- it's only a new battle map with a castle, not a new campaign map -- maybe in due course, though!

AFIK the various events like GH, gunpowder etc are hardcoded to certain dates, so it's probably not possible to have one without the rest, though to be honest I haven't looked into it properly, just avoided those dates, like most mods do. Now I have found the text messages that come up with these events, so they could be changed, but I expect the "results" would still be the same - ie new trade goods appearing, acumen to certain governors, influence to faction leaders. BUT these will probably cause CTDs if the appropriately named factions aren't present (ie as it's based on VI the factions are labelled as FN_01, FN_02 etc rather than FN_ENGLISH, FN_DANISH yadda yadda..) However I don't see any reason one faction (ie Sea Peoples) couldn't be labelled as FN_GOLDEN_HORDE, but they'll almost certainly end up emerging in Khazar, unless region declarations are changed, and suddenly it all starts to look very complicated.... not impossible, but involved.

Another line of thought I intend to investigate is to try and make "civilised" and "barbarian" castle lines diverge (should be possible by using the "upgrade" slots) and if I get really ambitious make some "Middle eastern" castle textures based on those fort pics you emailed....

And in 2012 I might resurrect my Britannia 43AD mod :laugh4:

[dimitrios the samian]

I live & hope ,, But your news & progress over the past few weeks is amazing Macsen :beam: ,, I must be honest & say that I downloaded the Bif Slayer & along with my Paint-Shop Pro began messing about with one Citadel bif or buf and found it most interesting but beyond me at the moment :dizzy2: but I did manage to make it Assyrian !! surprised myself ... I am pleased to hear that we can use other imported images to represent castles / forts & citadels on the campaign map as it just gives it that extra flavour ,, Let me know if you need more pics of any type OK ,, I just feel I want to assist in some way and eventually over the next few months learn how to make/modify parchments , campaign map peices , review panels etc etc ... cheers for now ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

Only a little update today:

2 new castle maps - the one I trialled as an HTW map yesterday has been redone, and whilst it has some quirks, it does work, and the other idea works, no serious quirks. Unfortunately I was up til 2am playing testing, so haven't had time to take any screenshots for you, but to cut to the chase they are 1) a crannog and 2) a hillfort.

As they work in VI it will be possible to add them in there and play them as a custom game, so if anyone wants a taster - just PM an email address and I can send them out tomorrow (DTS I have yours so will send them anyway :2thumbsup: )

The crannog is modelled as close as MTW will allow ie it's a bit too square and it's a peninsula rather than linked by a bridge, but you get the general feel. It also has a river in it so the attackers can't deploy right at the gate (although the starting army does seem to face the wrong way at first.... :inquisitive: - but I think that's down to combining a river and a castle, the HTW map does the same... I guess at the deployment stage it says "Hmm, there's a river, I have to deploy in the north. And there's a castle, so I have to FACE north" ... :beam: )

The hillfort is similarly a bit too square (but you'll never get round that as the maps are grid based). It really requires a larger map, so the higher castle levels will go onto a 'large' one.

Next one I've sketched out is for a cliff-top fort, well defended and overlooking the sea. Hope to make that one tonight.

[macsen rufus]

Well, I didn't get the cliff-top stronghold done, but I did finish off the hilffort series of maps and succesfully imported them into the Bronze Age, and even managed to call it up properly using the "map group" entry from region attributes. In the process of testing I discovered the reason why citadels don't work properly in HTW BA - the map groups are organised for five castle levels each with one upgrade, yet the second castle in the game (fortified village) calls the map for 'level 2 upgrade 0' rather than 'level 1 upgrade 1'. Therefore all the other maps are out of sync by a level, and once citadel level is reached there are no maps left. Hence the "default" battle map loads instead (a slightly bumpy flat grassland without trees or water or hills). You get exactly the same map when you set border attributes that don't match any map type in your battle/maps folder.

Mind you I've only tested up to second level yet, so am not able to say what the full fix for HTW will be, but I shall in due course :2thumbsup:

Anyway, here's the hillfort in action, with extreme perspectives possible thanks to -ian:

View from south east:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000011.jpg

View from south west:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000012.jpg

A couple of close-up views:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000013.jpg
https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000014.jpg

[dimitrios the samian]

Fantabulous Macsen !! very nice indeed ,, also well done unravelling more of the synchronicity & how it all gels ,, Have a good Easter man and make sure you put in a bit of R&R time for yourself ok .... cheers ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

Hi DTS - there's a couple of maps winging their way via email, including one of the hillforts. I'd like to hear how they play for you (and of course they'd be good for any scenario up to & including Roman era :beam: )

I had a few pints of R&R last night, the main reason the new clifftop one didn't happen :laugh4:

[axel]

Hi mate
pics are great mate really great

[macsen rufus]

Good news everybody!

I decided it was time to draw a line, and call progress so far the "final beta", so I have made a little install pack, copied it back into a new copy of XL, and lo and behold, after three of four CTDs related to missing files, I finally had a second working copy of my beta. Which means I CAN RELEASE THE INSTALL PACK :balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2:

All I need to do now is find a way to get it out. Even as a ZIP file it's 250Mb! I don't think any of my sites have that much spare room - I did consider "hiding" it in one of my work's websites, but again, not enough space :laugh4:

So it looks like I need to get it on to 3D or similar, but I can't do that til I copy it to CD to bring into work with me. So all being well it will be available tomorrow.

More later - for now I have to sort out why my anti-virus software is saying its own core DLL is a virus.... :inquisitive:

[western]

Hi Macsen
That's great news. Can't wait to try it.

[macsen rufus]

EDIT: Yippee! It works. THE BETA INSTALL WILL BE ONLINE TOMORROW!

[axel]

Woooowy i gonna get it :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Happy Birthday Marcus :balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2: :egypt:

[dimitrios the samian]

Awesome !!!! MTW lives on .......... & with a Rome Mod on its way as well :beam: its going to bring a lot of Rome boys back to MTW ... Ok talk to you soon Macsen re-beta-testing ,, cheers ,, DTS

[macsen rufus]

It's uploading now - 249Mb of zipped file! Another couple of hours to go. Hope you're not on dial-up :beam:

And here it is! Don't all rush at once ~D



LINKS TO BETAs now disabled - get the current version here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=86348)

[western]

Hi Macsen

Finally got it downloaded and it plays and looks great. I did about 40 years as the Assyrians and spotted no bugs. Obviously there is a dead page coords issue - no bodies. Otherwise, I'm just missing a steppe faction to threaten Assyria from the north. The Balts have now expanded to Georgia and are fulfilling that function, which is novel!

This is a great start and I hope you are encouraged to go on to the later periods - looks to me like the Mod is basically there and the rest is more gain for less pain.:2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Yay! Glad the download works okay, that's great news. Lucky to find that hosting site, most of them will not allow files of that sort of size, and this one gives you 250Mb max file size (my zip was 248.9Mb :beam: )

Ah, yes, the deadpage -- I knew there was another "known issue" I should have included in the readme file. It's one I've put to one side for now, on the grounds that I expect more units to go into the mod yet, so rather than keep updating deadpage coords, I'll do the whole lot in one fell swoop. For now the Bronze Age has uncharacteristically self-tidying battlefields :laugh4:

The other one you will notice is that the CASTLE and CITADEL map pieces are the old MTW ones, not the HTW ones, so the castle flags don't line up properly. If you have HTW simply copy across two buf files from your HTW install: campmap/pieces/buildings/castle.buf & citadel.buf (NOT the ones from the Hellenic folder) and that will fix it. Meanwhile I've started on a patch, and this is already in there.

I agree about the steppes, that's why Khazar is so well built up (ready to make Cimmerian cavalry if the rebels ever get any money). I notice the Balts are doing quite well in my game - I decided to just sit back and play it through for a while rather than concentrating on bug fixing etc for a change. At first it was the Thracians who used to steamroll the steppes, but the Balts are at it quite well in this campaign. At the other end of the continent it's the Iberocelts who are prospering.

I'm playing as Alisya, and have most of the Mediterranean trade routes tied up, and a thriving little empire that covers all the islands and is pushing up through Italy to the Alps. I think I need to "homeland" the Greek units, as they're a bit too tough and too widely available.

I still have my doubts about the Assyrian chariots, as I've just used the Persian Scythed Chariot model from HTW, and I guess they should really be the same as the Hittite & Egyptian style.

[dimitrios the samian]

Oooh shit !!!! damn dial up :dizzy2: @#!%* up again !!

[macsen rufus]

Hi Dimitiros,

if you're struggling, I'll post it up again in a few parts. Links later! :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi mate
I downloaded it but its 5.6 kb it take me not even a second to download??? is this OK??

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel - sounds like something's wrong - it's quarter of a gigabyte, so should take half an hour or so even on ADSL! Check the size of the file, should be 243MB.

I just tried it, and my share of the work's bandwidth is about 92kB/s today, and it's telling me it should take about 45mins.

I'm now uploading it all in four smaller zip files to make slow connections easier (as each one is available I'll activate the links below):

Part 1: Main folder (http://www.mydatabus.com/public/macsenrufus/z/ANCIENTBETAMINIINSTALL.zip) (474kb)
Part 2: Battle (http://www.mydatabus.com/public/macsenrufus/z/Battle.zip) (116Mb)
Part 3: Campmap (http://www.mydatabus.com/public/macsenrufus/z/campmap.zip) (45Mb)
Part 4: Textures (http://www.mydatabus.com/public/macsenrufus/z/Textures.zip) (87Mb)

These are folders in the main TW directory as before.

[dimitrios the samian]

Good news !! Im almost 20% and counting down ..... hopefully another good nite will see me up around half way ,, DTS ,,

[macsen rufus]

:beam: 10 downloads so far, don't know if this includes failed attempts and my tests cancelled halfway through (or Dimitrios doing it in shifts ... :clown: )

Anyway, all the smaller pieces are up now, so if anyone wants to do it piecemeal that's possible, too, cheers all!

[western]

Hi Macsen

I think this mod is rather hidden away. You'd have to be pretty hard core https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/images/smilies/gc/gc-embarassed.gif to be browsing the largely defunct HTW site and happen across it. Maybe there just aren't that many MTW1 fans out there now - but I doubt it.

I know it's still a beta but would you have any objection to me giving it a puff in the main forum so that people know it is live and know to go to HTW and take a look? The work deserves it - and I'm sure there are more people who would get a kick from playing it/chipping in ideas and assistance.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Western, no objection, not now that the beta's actually up and available. I was just wary of saying too much beforehand, as you've no doubt seen how many threads there have been about "I'm doing a great mod..." then no release follows :beam:

Must say I'm still having fun with the Alisyans, I've played it through to the beginning of the "high" era (1200BC) and my mirmidons have just come on line. (So far the only unit that's era-dependent, but the epetes will dismount to mirmidons as well....)

I'm not sure I trust the Iberocelts - they're my allies but have about 15 stacks lined up around my most northwesterly outpost in Genoa. I think my tough Helladic types can thrash them, but even so it'll be a three-hour battle if they DO decide to invade. (BTW my other allies are the Assyrians :2thumbsup: ) I've just about crushed the Hittites, and was about to start on the Mycenaeans but they quickly threw a princess at my heir, so I'll hold off a while on them :laugh4: I still have my doubts about whether Alisya should be a "Greek" culture, but not sure what else they'd be at that stage of history. Admittedly in the game's Late era Cyprus was Greek, but 1275BC... hmmm...

What do you think of the economy so far? I suspect it's all still a bit too rich and am tempted to "turn down" the farms a bit more. (Nothing to do with those 15 stacks of Iberocelts on my border, honest.... :beam: )

[axel]

hi mate
I cant download them they are all about 5.6 kb and empty files :help:
dont understand i trey to download other files just to check and it works, but your files i cant get :inquisitive:
i am on ADSL mate

[western]

Macsen

I agree the economy may be a bit too easy. But I wouldn't want to lose the ability for the AI to build some really big armies, which is one of the things I like at present. Personally, I wonder about going the other way of increasing the cost of some buildings and both the purchase and running costs of some units. Carried over from HTW, many are really low. I think there ought to be a pretty stiff premium to pay for quality troops and economic development, so build decisions have to be thought about carefully (while less thoughtful AI barbarians can get on with spawning hordes). The premium is there now for chariots, but not so sure for other troops and buildings.

Incidentally, looking at support costs, I think the costs for maintaining ships (1:5 compared to purchase price) are the highest I have seen on any Mod. I agree ships should have high support and have always cranked up from the pitiful levels in vanilla. Does trade still pay even at these costs? I have to ask an Alisyan - an Assyrian doesn't know. https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/images/smilies/gc/gc-laugh4.gif

[macsen rufus]

@Axel - I'm mystified. How are you doing the download? Have you tried a right-click and "Save target as..." - that works okay for me, and a left-click just brings up a blank page and the "Open or save?" dialogue box. Any pop-up blocker installed? (Although I don't think that would be the problem, but you never know.....)

Have you tried the smaller files, or just the large, full install? I really can't see why it's not working for you :no:

@ Western - the balance between the unit costs and the "productivity" of the map was one of the first things I spotted once this started to come together, as the HTW units are really cheap at present. But even in HTW I find the economy always takes off and I can train and build in every province, permanently. So I think it may well come down to increasing the cost of things.

As for the ships, I have not edited them at all, so standard HTW stats apply. I will eventually reduce the number of ship-types available (and spread them through the eras) as there are some major anachronisms! For the beta I just needed something that would work :laugh4: As to your question, yes, trade does pay, especially when you have copper as a trade item (as it should be, of course... :beam: ) I finally decided to take on the Iberocelts (that 15 stacks has become 30 .....) so took out most of their navy, in the hopes of a civil war. My trade plummeted from a 6k surplus to 3k deficit as they had been my main customers, and I had ships in every sea region with a port.

[dimitrios the samian]

Yihaaa .... almost 50% and ready to resume .....

[axel]

Hi mate
I am downloading now at this moment, it work now :dizzy2: dont know why he did nt the first cople of times but now he works thx mate:2thumbsup:
ill play it this weekend :balloon2: :balloon2:

[macsen rufus]

That's good news, Axel! :balloon2: Glad you can get it now. The only thought I have is maybe we'd used up all the bandwidth for the day (1Gb per day = 4 full downloads).

AND DTS - sorry, I've just looked at my email, and seen your mail! There's a reply on its way, wasn't ignoring it, I just don't check email as often as I come to the org ...

And I notice I've had three "bandwidth limit" notifications from mydatabus.com as well.....

[Iron Lord]

Hey everyone :turtle: . I just registered for the forums (although i have been playing MTW since it came out) after at least a year or two of enjoying this site. I've been keeping up with your work on this mod for a little while now and I was wondering if you needed anyone else to help you with this project. I am a pretty decent modder, except for creating a new campaign map and completely new units (i.e desinging the unit icons and animations and such) which i am trying to learn now. I am working on a mod of my own, which i plan to release info on soon. I was wondering in addition (if it is not to much of a bother), if i may use perhaps your animations and such from your basic tribal warriors.
Oh and i downloaded your beta. It's addicting :dizzy2:. I spent most of this weekend playing instead of modding hehe. :egypt:

[dimitrios the samian]

Welcome Iron Lord ,, Good to see another excited player enjoying the Bronze Age Mod by Macsen ,, Im also looking forward to sampling it very very soon ,, Tell us a little more about your Mod ? cheers for now ,, DTS

[axel]

Hi and welcome Iron Lord
Its alway s great to see more modders, myself i cant mod and dont have much time to mod becose of my work :furious3: but if i hade more time i would learn. there are more modders who are asking for help like the new Rome mod see : https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=79240 i hope this mod will be made as well, Marcus made a wonderfull mod :2thumbsup: And yes tell us more of your mod please :laugh4:

[axel]

Hi macsen rufus
I have to say i am sorry, Iam keep calling you marcus, a bit stupid from me :dizzy2: :dizzy2: i ment to say macsen the reason is becose i got a friend who cals himself marcus on line with somme game cald Rune so sorry mate i am really a :embarassed:

[barocca]

just downloaded a copy for a look see :-)

are you going to mention this beta release in the Main Hall?
you should

cheers,
B.

[dimitrios the samian]

Hello Barocca ,, Good to see you at this end of the forum ,, I really do hope you enjoy the game :yes: .... Q ,, Would it be possible for you to enlighten me on how you made those really nice campmap peices for Samurai ? ,, I have the necessary time patience & appetite to learn so I can help Macsen with expanding & refining this mod and also fire up some interest and get the Rome mod actively moving along ,, I have checked the Repository & Lab without finding anything ...see my post their ,, cheers ,, DTS

[barocca]

this thread? in the Alchemist Lab (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=83201)
:bow:
B.

[macsen rufus]

Hi everyone - good to see the Bronze Age community is snowballing! Welcome to Iron Lord and Barocca (one day I'll get back to to my Samurai campaign :laugh4: )

@Iron Lord - the animations are mostly those from HTW, the only changes I've done really is swap a few shields around (ie for the tribal spears etc)

@Axel - Marcus, Macsen, all a bit confusing, no worries! Just don't abbreviate it to Mac, the short form is Macs (because 'cs' is a double letter - there's no 'x' in Welsh :laugh4: )

Don't have long now, maybe back at lunchtime, just thought I'd let you know I've started on the "high" era and introduced a Sea Peoples faction. It's fine to play, but when they're AI controlled, they are seriously inert. Just sit there losing money and influence, and not rampaging through the Aegean and Levant like they should ('barbarian raider' personality my foot!) Might need to move them into the FN_07 slot (Vikings in VI) and see if that makes any difference.

Will also be adding Cimmerians and Prytani to fill up some gaps currently rebel.

[axel]

Hi mate
your ancient mod is wonderfull mate i cant waith till its all finished,
is there any thing else i cane do to help mate?? i am playing the Mycenaears at the moment i will report if i find any thing like bugs or stuff

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel, glad you're enjoying it. For the time being, a bit of concentrated playing is what's required, and let me know any problems / ideas / suggestions. Especially if you try a few campaigns, keep a track of what the AI factions do. If you find that any faction always takes over, we may need to rebalance things a bit. Also try a few different factions and see how they play - are you struggling for money, is it too easy, does the tech tree seem okay etc.

And enjoy the Mycenaeans, of course, come the patch their 'homelands' will be reduced so that you won't be able to train the better troops types away from the Helladic world :2thumbsup: And don't forget you can dismount your epetes ...

Meanwhile I'm looking at the "high" era, and will be able to put a patch together for that later.

[axel]

hi mate
ill play a fue campains with different factions and will of course enjoy this lol:2thumbsup: ill let you know

[axel]

Hi mate
just a question are there no emissary i cant see them mate but other factions are asking for aliens and my second question is are when cane you make horse (cavalerie) i like your mod mate its really good no problems so far:2thumbsup:

[Iron Lord]

Hey Mascen, I have a few question on how you did a few things for you mod for Horde:Total War if you don't mind as i am having a few frustrating problems. My first question is i can't seem to find where you edit the name of a religion e.g. for when you look at there shield and it says the faction and religion. I've tried changing the name of the religion in the names section but that doesn't work. :wall: Do you know how to do that?
I addition, i found this for if you wanted to changed the name of the religion when you look at the religion percentages. Go to TOOLTIP in LOC/ENG and search for religion until you get to where it says for example:
@{"Percentage of the population following the Pagan religion. This value can be influenced by buildings, events, invasions and the actions of agents in this region."}
This can be changed to whatever you want it to be. I can't recall exactly but i didn't think you edited this yet.

My other question is that I am having a problem with a UNKNOWN_unit_type problem when i am trying to add in a few new units. Now i know how to fully add new units and graphics and such. From everything I have read in the forums as farback as i can go, this is usually caused by a additional tab or something like that. Even when i go back and remake the unit in the Gnome from scratch i still get this error. So i end up spending way to much time trying to add even just one unit. So my question is how did you avoid this kind of problem/do you know what i am doing wrong/any tips on making new units? :help:

I know i am asking alot of question, but if you can help me in any way that would be awesome.

[macsen rufus]

Quick update: new shields for the Hittites (as seen on the swordsmen only so far):

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/00000019.jpg


Don't have long right now, but @Axel: in early era horses were really only used for pulling chariots :beam: the only cavalry available is the Amazigh Horsemen (Libyans only) and the Cimmerian Cavalry (steppe provinces only) There will be more available in the LATE period when the Assyrians learn how to ride & shoot properly.

Emissaries come from the Law Court for "civilised" factions (I think that includes the Greeks). For the Pagans, the "Shaman" acts as emissary (Pagan Sacrificial Shrine).

@Iron Lord, I'll be back at lunchtime :2thumbsup:

[cegorach]

It is a matter of careful copying/pasting where Gnome has little to add.

Basically if you have copied just one tab more/less than you should you will get this problem.

Another thing is the waste left by Gnome in the ending lines of crusader file - if you add massive amounts of data you will notice that sometimes even dozens of units can appear twice, but as not legitimate entries.
These will be seen as data 'without connection' appearing after the last real unit.
The only solution is to eraze such data by simple deletion, though with some care I must add.



There is one very good solution when adding new units to the game - copy the data and paste it , though not at the end after the last unit, but rather somewhere before it, all you need to copy the whole space between the unit before and the one after - including all spaces/tabs etc and place it in the same way somewhere lower.


BY all the data I mean this:


AlgerianNaval INFANTRY 250 6 1 0 80 80 1 DISCOURAGED "MUS_REBELS(-10), MUS_LOYALISTS(2), MUS_PEASANTS(2), MUS_BANDITS(-20)" FN_TURKISH "POVERTY_STRICKEN(5), DESPERATE_DEFENCE(70), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST(70), CATHOLIC_NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST(70), CATHOLIC_TRADER(70), CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER(70), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST_CRUSADER(70), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER(70), POPE(70), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE(70), CATHOLIC_ISOLATIONIST(70), ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE(70), ORTHODOX_EXPANSIONIST(70), ORTHODOX_STAGNANT(70), MUSLIM_PEACEFUL(70), MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST(70), MUSLIM_DEVOUT(70), BARBARIAN_RAIDER(18), REBELS(70), CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT(33.5)" "{GUNSMITH2,SWORDSMITH}" "ATTACKER,ANTI_SPEAR,STRONG" ALL_PERIODS NO "HEIGHT( 85 ), RADIUS( 25 ), SCALE( 120 ), PROJECTILE_TYPE( SBOW ), SAMURAI( NO ), MARCH_SPEED( 7 ), RUN_SPEED( 11 ), CHARGE_SPEED( 12 ), MIN_TURNSPEED( 2 ), MAX_TURNSPEED( 8 ), TURN_TO_MOTION_SPEED( 8 ), MAX_INMOTION_TURN( 96 ), FORMATION_WIDTH_SPACING( 75 ), FORMATION_LENGTH_SPACING( 75 ), ENGAGEMENT_THRESHOLD( 1500 ), CHARGE_BONUS( 4 ), MELEE_BONUS( 3 ), DEFENCE_BONUS( -1 ), ARMOUR_LEVEL( 1 ), HONOUR_LEVEL( 4 ), AMMO( 5 ), FORMATIONS_PREFERRED_NUM_ROWS( 3 )" NO "own_unit_tooltip1, own_unit_tooltip2, other_unit_tooltip1, other_unit_tooltip2" "PESTUCAV, YES, YES" "FN_TURKISH, FN_PERSIAN, FN_MAROCCAN" "ID_TUNISIA,ID_ALGERIA" "Missile, Shocktroop, Spear, Cavalry" "SKIRMISH(1), ADVANCE_PARTY(1),
OUTFLANKING_FORCE(0), MAIN_BODY(2), HOLD_TERRAIN(0), RESERVE(0), REINFORCEMENT(1), ASSAULT(0), ASSAULT_COVER(2), ASSAULT_COVER_CASTLE_ATTACK(0), COVER(2)" 0 UNFORMED SMALL NO 1 NO 0 0 MuslimFeudalLevy yes SWORD YES "HIGH,LATE" "FN_TURKISH":book:
TufekchiMusketeers INFANTRY 300 5 1 0 80 120 1 DISCOURAGED "MUS_REBELS(-1), MUS_LOYALISTS(1), MUS_PEASANTS(-5), MUS_BANDITS(-10)" ID_EDESSA "POVERTY_STRICKEN(31), DESPERATE_DEFENCE(130), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST(170), CATHOLIC_NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST(170), CATHOLIC_TRADER(170), CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER(170), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST_CRUSADER(170), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER(170), POPE(170), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE(170), CATHOLIC_ISOLATIONIST(170), ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE(170), ORTHODOX_EXPANSIONIST(130), ORTHODOX_STAGNANT(130), MUSLIM_PEACEFUL(130), MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST(130), MUSLIM_DEVOUT(130), BARBARIAN_RAIDER(24), REBELS(130), CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT(112.5)" "{GUNSMITH2,SWORDSMITH}" "MISSILE, ANTI_SPEAR, STRONG" "HIGH,LATE" NO "HEIGHT( 85 ), RADIUS( 25 ), SCALE( 120 ), PROJECTILE_TYPE( XBOW ), SAMURAI( NO ), MARCH_SPEED( 6 ), RUN_SPEED( 11 ), CHARGE_SPEED( 12 ), MIN_TURNSPEED( 2 ), MAX_TURNSPEED( 8 ), TURN_TO_MOTION_SPEED( 8 ), MAX_INMOTION_TURN( 96 ), FORMATION_WIDTH_SPACING( 75 ), FORMATION_LENGTH_SPACING( 75 ), ENGAGEMENT_THRESHOLD( 1500 ), CHARGE_BONUS( 4 ), MELEE_BONUS( 2 ), DEFENCE_BONUS( -2 ), ARMOUR_LEVEL( 1 ), HONOUR_LEVEL( 2 ), AMMO( 5 ), FORMATIONS_PREFERRED_NUM_ROWS( 5 )" NO "own_unit_tooltip1, own_unit_tooltip2, other_unit_tooltip1, other_unit_tooltip2" "MAILHCAV, YES, YES" FN_TURKISH "ID_BULGARIA,ID_HUNGARY,ID_CROATIA,ID_SERBIA,ID_GREECE,ID_CONSTANTINOPLE,ID_CRETE,ID_RHODES,ID_GEORGI A,ID_ARMENIA,ID_RUM,ID_LESSER_ARMENIA,ID_EDESSA,ID_TREBIZOND,ID_NICAEA,ID_ANATOLIA,ID_CYPRUS,ID_ANTI OCH,ID_SYRIA,ID_TRIPOLI,ID_JERUSALEM" "Missile, Shocktroop, Spear, Cavalry" "SKIRMISH(1), ADVANCE_PARTY(1),
OUTFLANKING_FORCE(0), MAIN_BODY(2), HOLD_TERRAIN(0), RESERVE(0), REINFORCEMENT(1), ASSAULT(0), ASSAULT_COVER(2), ASSAULT_COVER_CASTLE_ATTACK(0), COVER(2)" 0 UNCONTROLLED UNFORMED NONE YES 1 NO 0 0 Minerteam SWORD NO LATE FN_TURKISH
:book: TufekchiYenicheri INFANTRY 450 11 2 0 80 100 1 OK "MUS_REBELS(-1), MUS_LOYALISTS(-5), MUS_ZEALOTS(-15)" "POVERTY_STRICKEN(24), DESPERATE_DEFENCE(110), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST(130), CATHOLIC_NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST(130), CATHOLIC_TRADER(130), CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER(130), CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST_CRUSADER(130), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE_CRUSADER(130), POPE(130), CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE(130), CATHOLIC_ISOLATIONIST(130), ORTHODOX_DEFENSIVE(130), ORTHODOX_EXPANSIONIST(130), ORTHODOX_STAGNANT(130), MUSLIM_PEACEFUL(130), MUSLIM_EXPANSIONIST(130), MUSLIM_DEVOUT(130), BARBARIAN_RAIDER(21), REBELS(130), CLOSE_TO_SUPPORT_LIMIT(30.5)" "{GUNSMITH3,SWORDSMITH2,MILITARY_ACADEMY}" "MISSILE, ANTI_SPEAR, STRONG" 2 ALL_PERIODS NO "HEIGHT( 85 ), RADIUS( 25 ), SCALE( 120 ), PROJECTILE_TYPE( SBOW ), SAMURAI( YES ), MARCH_SPEED( 8 ), RUN_SPEED( 11 ), CHARGE_SPEED( 13 ), MIN_TURNSPEED( 2 ), MAX_TURNSPEED( 8 ), TURN_TO_MOTION_SPEED( 8 ), MAX_INMOTION_TURN( 96 ), FORMATION_WIDTH_SPACING( 60 ), FORMATION_LENGTH_SPACING( 60 ), ENGAGEMENT_THRESHOLD( 1500 ), CHARGE_BONUS( 7 ), MELEE_BONUS( 3 ), DEFENCE_BONUS( 4 ), ARMOUR_LEVEL( 1 ), HONOUR_LEVEL( 7 ), AMMO( 5 ), FORMATIONS_PREFERRED_NUM_ROWS( 3 )" NO "own_unit_tooltip1, own_unit_tooltip2, other_unit_tooltip1, other_unit_tooltip2" "PESTUCAV, YES, YES" FN_TURKISH "ID_BULGARIA,ID_HUNGARY,ID_CROATIA,ID_SERBIA,ID_GREECE,ID_CONSTANTINOPLE,ID_RHODES,ID_ARMENIA,ID_RUM, ID_LESSER_ARMENIA,ID_EDESSA,ID_TREBIZOND,ID_NICAEA,ID_ANATOLIA,ID_CYPRUS,ID_ANTIOCH,ID_SYRIA,ID_TRIP OLI,ID_JERUSALEM" "Missile, Shocktroop, Spear, Cavalry" "SKIRMISH(1), ADVANCE_PARTY(1),
OUTFLANKING_FORCE(0), MAIN_BODY(2), HOLD_TERRAIN(0), RESERVE(0), REINFORCEMENT(1), ASSAULT(0), ASSAULT_COVER(2), ASSAULT_COVER_CASTLE_ATTACK(0), COVER(2)" 0 DISCIPLINED PERFECTLY_FORMED NONE YES 1 NO 0 -3 ISLAMIC(1) Minerteam SWORD ALL_PERIODS FN_TURKISH


From one 'book' to another.

From my experience it remains the best possible approach - this way it is possible to add dozens of units in no time without a need to test the resuts too often - once per a dozen is enough..:2thumbsup:



@Macsen rufus

I have read a little about assyrian horsemen from 900 B.C. and earlier times - early empire. They rode in pairs - one was steering both horses another one was only for shooting and fighting.

Apparently one was armed with a spear and shield (the 'driver') and the second was a kind of mobile archer - calling him horse archer would be too much.

It often diesmounted before a battle when requested.

Another thing - they apparently rode one horses' bottoms - proper saddles were not yet invented.

My question is are you gong to try to add the feature ?

I know it is possible - since HTW uses full horse-and-rider animations you can combine two different models in one cavalry unit by setting one as a mount and moving it is the coordinates so they are side by side now.

The flaws are that
- this way you have a number of teams instead of people so you might want to rise their stats a little (and give them proper anti-missile protection - a large shield or a pavise would be sufficient) - one death mean two models less.
- the animation used as 'mount' cannot have any attached weapons at all - so the right place for the mobile archer in the team.
- the weapons' coordinates for the spear armed model might need correction - the new model coordinates might impose it.


Might be hard, but probably you will have something noone else uses - and it will be absolutelly historically accurate.
If you don't know where to start check my Izci Tatarlar in PMTW - the cavalry with two mounts.


Regards Cegorach

[macsen rufus]

@ Cegorach -- I have seen the info about the Assyrian "mobile archers" and was just going to pretend they were like ordinary horse archers :laugh4: But, you are right, to be really accurate there should be the two horses side by side...

I don't recall seeing the Iczi tartarlar with two mounts - is this in PMTW v1.5? That's the latest I have, so I might be getting behind, or I might just be unobservant :beam: Anyway, I was considering having a look at some of the things you'd done in there for ideas... The main problem is I'm not really set up for doing a lot with animations, it's okay to swap a few shields and weapons, but any 3D modelling or anything requiring artistic ability is beyond my boundaries.

The other thought I had was maybe using a chariot pair as mounts.

@ Iron Lord - yes, the method Cegorach outlined above is pretty much what I do - open the prod_file in notepad, copy a unit that's a bit like the one you want to make, and paste it in between existing units (I usually put them in just before the beginning of the ships so they're easy to find). Then save the file, and reopen in Gnome, and edit the stats from there. Once it's saved with Gnome, I REOPEN it AGAIN with Notepad, to make sure there are no extra bits of Gnome-junk on the end. If there are, delete this and resave, then try it out!

I also tend to do things by stages - ie make a copy of a unit, change its name, but not the animations or stats, train it, run it through a battle etc to check all the names and info pics are all okay. Then I'll change the animations and so on. Bit by bit, so when errors crop up they're easier to find. One thought that springs up on your "Unknown unit" problem -- this can arise from entries in the DISMOUNT or FEARED UNITS column. I had that a few times, copying things from one unit_prod to another - many HTW units I've recycled are afraid of elephants, and I don't have elephants in the mod, so the FEARED UNITS column was what caused the crash.

I haven't tried changing religions, I'm afraid, but I believe the basics are hardcoded and you can only change the text descriptions and the icons. That's something I've put to one side as a "finishing touches" project.

The wierdest problem I've seen is that one certain unit always causes a CTD if I try to place it at the beginning of a campaign with the MakeUnit:: command. There are no other problems with it, it works in battle, is trainable, belongs to the right factions, culture, era and provinces and so on. But once I try to put them on the map in the startpos file, they always cause a CTD. Anyone else had a problem like this? I just cannot find anything that may be causing it, and it has cost me a few hours to track down after I updated my startpos. Really had me pulling my hair out, as it was so unexpected...

[barocca]

culture will do that,

now i am very rusty but IIRC
unit culture must match culture of faction it is assigned to (who owns the province)
and culture of province must match culture of province owner too....
cheers,
B.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Barocca -- thanks for that. I think the culture etc is all correct, as the unit is trainable from turn one, and it's an "all faction" unit, as well. In terms of culture/faction/location it's no different to other units that CAN be placed safely. But I will have a closer check :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Macsen thx mate :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Currently developing the "high era" ( "The Catastrophe"). As well as the Sea Peoples, I've also added in the Cimmerians and Prytani who will both go into the early era too. There will be more factions to follow, including Ugarit (decided to make it an independent state rather than part of the Hittite empire - it was historically wiped out in the Catastrophe, so the challenge will be to survive :2thumbsup: ), Ligurians, Philistines and Israelites (late era only). There are too few provinces to really do justice to the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics of the era.... Oh, and the Phoenicians of course, for the late era.

Here's the starting position for the High era (so far):

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

[western]

Hi Macsen

All sounds very tempting. I've been playing the beta quite a lot, with no issues or crashes. The imported stuff from HTW is good of course - top quality battle maps and graphics, but I also really like the feel you have achieved with new emblems, portraits, info-pics etc. It's a visual treat to play and I can't wait to see the new work. :yes:

[axel]

Hi mate
It looks really great and i am really enjoying this mod mate:2thumbsup: :beam:

[macsen rufus]

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

A little more progress last night - biggest change is that I've now put the Sea Peoples into the FN_07 slot (which is the "Viking" slot) which had been given to the Thracians at first. Having checked out a few moves with the Thracians using the -ian facility I finally convinced myself that this slot is what caused the Thracians to rampage all over the place! They were able to get back on their ships without ports (just like the Vikings) and they always seemed to have too much cash (raiding bonus!) SO the proper place for all this is with the Sea Peoples! Eveything seems to have switched over okay, but I doubt I've tested it all thoroughly yet. It was about the last thing I did before falling asleep last night, so I've not had time to see how the AI handles them, but I expect they won't be as inert as they were at first :skull: .

The bad news is that the next patch will not be save-game safe, and you'll have to start your campaigns all over from scratch :beam:

The unit roster for the Cimmerians has had a bit of work now, as well:

* Cimmerian cavalry - BG unit
* Tribal warriors
* Slingers
* Tribal archers
* Cimmerian spearmen
* Cimmerian archers (compound bows + axes)
* Cimmerian warband (axes)

They have no sword unit or javelins, and the Cimmerian unique units are "homelanded" to the steppes (the infantry homeland is slightly larger than the cav homeland, as well). Although all factions can train CimCav in the appropriate provinces, the Cimmerian faction has a cost advantage on these, even so they are still expensive and high-tech (two level 3 facilities required) as we're talking about the very first stirrings of equestrianism here :2thumbsup:

Prepare to defend your northern borders, Western :beam:

I've also redone a few of the review panel unit icons, so there won't be quite so many identical-looking spearmen etc. I've now got a good selection of graphics software so should be ready to do the battle unit icons as well, where it really matters (having the same icon for skirmishers and heavy infantry can lead to some serious tactical blunders :laugh4:)

[Lord Zimoa of Flanders]

Good luck everybody, very nice to see this old beaty HTW being kicked alive again.

I will not be of much help, I have lost all HTW files over the years, Komninos may have an old back-up, if the man still hangs around here.

If you all have time, visit our new game developing company The Lordz Games Studio one day, as the road from modding to actually building your own games is hard work and stressful, but also loads of fun.

Take care and threat HTW with respect, the old lady deserves it.:-)

Cheers,

LZoF

[macsen rufus]

Hi LZoF, good to see you back around these parts!

I like to keep the old HTW heritage alive, and bring life to all those half-finished units in the animations :beam: . Another part of the pay off is I intend to go back and do more on the HTW BA campaigns as well, I only really got halfway last time, then my old PC died :no:

Good luck with the new venture, by the way - it looks very exciting, and I'll be sure to give it a try. After all something has to be the first game I buy since getting MTW, and nothing else has even come close yet :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Over the weekend (well Sunday, anyway...) I had another session, and have tried out the latest changes.

The Sea Peoples are in need of more work, as they are still decidedly unscary and incapable of destroying three Middle eastern civilizations on their own. They are much more likely to attack the rebels in southern France than go after the rich pickings of Hatti or Kemet. Maybe I need to reduce the navies of the "civilized" factions, and also make the Ligurians a faction (which was in the plan anyway).

The Cimmerians are also rampaging quite well across the steppes, but looking at their armies, I think the tribal warriors will have to go, but shall replace them with Jav Cav. Also I think the CimCav (horse archer) units are too large. The Prytani seem to do okay, slowly taking over the whole of Britain from the rebels.

I've enabled the rebels to train tribal warriors, so their armies are no longer huge stacks of slingers :beam:

Also had bit of a clear-out on the tech-tree, removing a few "too advanced" buildings, adding a couple of new ones, and tweaking some build-dependencies. Barbarians can no longer build citadels, and emissaries come from unique buildings, except the pagan shamans. The result is that "civilized" factions can ONLY get their full morale upgrades from a single province.

EDIT: continued after interruption ....

New units in the pipeline:
Egyptian
* menfyt spears (once I work out the weapon co-ordinates ~D )
* nakhtu-aa heavy infantry (the "strong-arm boys")+ dismountable version with javelins

Libya
* Libyan tribesmen (low-defence axe maniacs)

Sea Peoples
* Lukka (archers?)
* Meshwesh (tribal axe type, also for Libya, trainable in Tunisia)
* Ahhiyawaa (sp?) - "Achaeans" based on Myc amippi

Illyrians
* Illyrian raiders from HTW (HIGH onwards)
* Illyrian cav (LATE era)

(the Illyrians are in a tough spot, I gave them a try and had to fight off a couple of Mycenaean invasions, no wonder the AI Illyrians always get wiped out...)

Barbarians
* Hunters (hide-in-open bowmen, small units, good melee stats, like hashishin etc)

But the main issue for now is getting the Sea Peoples into "character", and get them raiding before they go bankrupt....

[western]

Hi Macsen

Don't know how to make the Sea Peoples aggressive, but if you want to drive them to expand south and west, you could play around with sea regions. Looking at your set-up, if they only had coastal ships, you could close Ligurian/Tyrrhenian and make Gulf of Gabes deep water - et voila. Other factions could still get everywhere through the deep seas (not that the Celts ever did invade Africa, but I guess you want your phoenicians and greeks to be able to go west). Just a thought. :beam:

[western]

Oops, I meant "south and east" :oops:

[macsen rufus]

I had the most frustrating session ever last night - three hours to add ONE BUILDING..... and in the end it seemed it wasn't working just because MTW didn't like the NAME of my latest build_prod file. Having checked EVERYTHING to do with the building over and over, to find this glitch.... aaaagh :furious3:

It was just one of those days yesterday :no:

[macsen rufus]

@Western - interesting ideas, but I think the presence of the Ligurians as a faction will certainly help, and I think the Sea Peoples will need a better economy. They have certainly picked up their ideas a bit since I made them FN_07, but keep losing Nicaea to the Thracians (which is not too inaccurate, as it's believed the Phrygians were a Thracian tribe who crossed the Bosporus - though not quite yet :laugh4: Might have to remove the land-bridge here, or make Thrace more rebellious so they're less likely to invade.) The Sea Peoples often manage to invade Phoenicia so long as the Egyptians/Hittites/Assyrians haven't already taken it....

Regarding the ships, they're all designated as deep sea, as per HTW (though I have now made a few tweaks, and might make the basic ship coastal only again, as well).

Hopefully tonight I'll be able to put my time to better use than tracking down odd quirks :wall:

[Bonfire]

yeahim having trouble launchgin your mod.. i have total war ERAS MTW VI

so its fully patch and all but when i install your patch to .

the creative assembly/mtw gold eddition

then when i click on the icon on desktop it continuly ask for the cd-rom.

lil help please im dying to play the greeks which in fact were the first ones to conquer the known medaterian.. then the phoicians came. then the persians..

anyways yeah i wanna change history:smash:

lil help fixing this problem. i'll post the cure in apothacary

[macsen rufus]

Hi Bonfire - the Ancient mod is designed to be installed over the XL mod version 2.1 (to get the right campaign map), so you will need that one first. I must admit I have never used the Eras install, so I don't know if that has any other issues compared to the original game. It might be best to check in the Apothecary, if it has cropped up as an issue it will have been dealt with in there by now :beam:

[macsen rufus]

sorry double post...

[macsen rufus]

Sorry - TRIPLE post.... another one of those days :no:

[Bonfire]

the only thing im having troubles is that when i install your mod to the MTW VI gold eddition directory. it like i think overwrites the source info of the e.e so that it doesn't recognise the cd-rom..

i been playing samuari warlords MTW mod andMTW XL so it not a issuse of tech diff. i think you mod is not total war era's friendly. ohh well next version maybe.

[barocca]

ah...no

this mod does not alter or edit the executable in any way shape or form,

if you are having DVD issues they are not caused by HTW

[Bonfire]

ok i installed.

gold eddition for MTW VI already patched to 2.01 cause its gold..

then installed MTW XL then patched to 2.1

then installed Hellenic Total War

and i still get the message that correct cd rom needs to be in there.

meanwhile it is still the MTW VI Gold cd is still int eh cd drive....

i know it works if i just figure this out.

cause Samuari warlords and MTW XL still works for me in copied MTW VI 2.01
other folders...

[Bonfire]

ok i got it figured out.

the hellnic patch overwrites the mtw VI exe and requirs another cd-rom other then the cd rom i had in there it was probably lookin for an older version of the cd-roms. so whati did was over-write it with a previous exe tha ti took from the XL mod exe folder.

i now have. 3

samuari mod
xl mod
and hellnic mod.

[Bonfire]

i don't wanna rain on oyur parade bro. but somthing came ot my attention that must be fixed as because of time line and wars through the world.


---------------
the first WAR to reach the 5,000 + were in japan with shogun total war.even int he history books when eourpe started dukign things out with lil over 2-3,00 with the crusades thats per battle leading there.

so your unit size's in HTW and bronze age well there not historicaly correct. there a wet dream of pamela at night if i may say..

not to mention having such huge armys .. comptly utterly invite CTD's

reccomend units size no greater then 100..

but thats just my opion.

[Iron Lord]

No offense man, but you might want to look back over your history books. I may not be a history buff when it comes to the bronze age time period, but i know if you move on to the hellenic period the persians had armies of more than 100,000 men. The shogun total war period is far past what this mod is about, so what does that have to do with this time period? Oh and I think the unit sizes are fine, at least based on the limited knowledge i have on this time period.

[Aurelian]

Hi. Regarding the Sea Peoples:

Have you considered having the Sea Peoples launch crusades to simulate their migrations?

The Fall of Rome mod uses the crusade function to simulate the barbarian invasions... and it works quite well. As long as the Sea Peoples are "Catholic", and the target areas are "Orthodox", "Muslim", or "Pagan" it should work. You could make the Anatolian/Middle Eastern cultures Orthodox and Muslim... and the Western/Northern European culture "Catholic". That would channel the Sea Peoples in the appropriate direction.

In Fall of Rome, the barbarians seem to target the high value Roman provinces when they launch their crusades. If you made Egypt, Hatti, etc. particularly high value provinces, I believe you could direct the Sea Peoples towards those provinces.

You can also play with the strength level of crusades so they would be an appropriate threat.

While it seems logical, using the pagan Viking faction slot probably won't achieve what you're looking for because it's just too undirected.

Crusades!

[Bonfire]

No offense man, but you might want to look back over your history books. I may not be a history buff when it comes to the bronze age time period, but i know if you move on to the hellenic period the persians had armies of more than 100,000 men. The shogun total war period is far past what this mod is about, so what does that have to do with this time period? Oh and I think the unit sizes are fine, at least based on the limited knowledge i have on this time period.

to respond to you ..

what i mean is. the most ppl on the field in was the japanese. the persians came in waves.


im tlaking total war. against 1 faction vs another. you think the persians and the greek were the only ones going at it.
take a look at the expansion map of the persian empire. in the bronze age you will notice they didn't have everything.

i will admit they came close. but the history books state

that the most ppl to go all out war. not still traveling not mobilizing im talking battle all in the same day.. not how big the army is in waiting.

im talking engaged in battle the most i have ever red was in japan. when armies starting reaching the 3-5,000

----------
100,000 men you say i think you took that from 300. anyways to tell you the truth about the war of sparta VS the persian. IT WAS GUERILLA war fare

HOLLYWOOD likes to exagerate films.

(sooo back to topic of war)

the most arimes to be ENGAGED IN BATTLE. was by the japanes in the segjoku dai era<-- sory for mispelling.. when the entire country was in civil war.

[Bonfire]

also would like to say that in response if your gonna say troy VS sparta.

that war lasted so long the death toll was in the 10,000 but it came no where near the 1,000 mark of the most men duking it out.

im sure the greeks had 10,000 but it wasn't all out battle.

inthe segjokudai era.. is when the portugese and the english began there gunpowder and christian missionary's in japan. so if therefor the most men to be engaged in battle. was in the japan

anyways i think i'll just stop piping about the unit size and just lower the units myself.

@iron lord

but i will say this. Sparta and Persia was just guerilla war fare..btw. the history bookstate many things about that war.

they say 300 spartans held of 1 million persians it also says they held off 100,000 for that matter they couold have said 1 billion. all we know is that its advertiseing at its best to get the interest of the ppl.

but i will say this one last time. the most ppl to be in engage in sword to sword spear to sword etc fighting at the same time. was in japan way lafter after the roman empire after the crusades.

[macsen rufus]

@Aurelian: interesting idea about "Crusades" for the Sea Peoples. I shall think about it a bit, as I'm not 100% sure about how to deal with the presence of the Pope, and, to be honest, changing all the cultures sounds ... daunting :laugh4:

I have made a few more tweaks, and the Sea Peoples are getting their act together a bit more, but they do have that annoying MTW habit of going for rebels first...

Later...

... cont.

As for the size of armies in the Late Bronze Age, most respectable near-eastern kingdoms could field somewhere in the region of 1,000 chariots (any less and there was no point even turning up for the battle), and typically infantry support was around ten times this. At Kadesh the Hittite forces amounted to either 17,000 or 37,000 depending on how you translate some ambiguous Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the Hittites had contingents from quite a number of allied/vassal states, which each contributed between 100 and 1000 chariots apiece plus infantry, according to Hittite records, indicating that Kadesh must have seen anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 men on the field. Of course the majority of the infantry did not engage on the Hittite side, and only two out of four Egyptian divisions engaged. Chariots operated in groups of ten, and a "squadron" typically was composed of 50 chariots (5 smaller units under one officer).

As for the Hellenic era (and HTW is a totally separate mod by the way), one thing we do know is that the Persian "Immortals" were maintained at 10,000 men. That's how the regiment got its name. And that was just the elite. Other regiments were nominally organised in units of 10,000 (or "chilia", I believe) though not always kept up to strength like the Immortals. Quite a few records of battles from the Peleponesian (sp?) War indicate numbers of hoplites alone in the 10,000 range PLUS a similar number of skirmishers when an alliance of "city-states" took to the field.

[axel]

And thats how it is :2thumbsup:

[Bonfire]

:2thumbsup: hell yes. goood job bro. nice.

[macsen rufus]

Some more new units added:

* the Egyptian nakhtu-aa infantry are done, with a dsimountable version with throwing spears
* "Lukka pirates" added, ALL_FACTIONS in Nicaea only (so initially for the Sea Peoples :2thumbsup: ). They're a melee-capable archer unit, with compound bows + swords, but quite small units (80-man)

I'll be taking Saturday off work so hope to get the rest of the new units and factions sorted over the weekend, and try for the next Patch / Beta v2 in time for next week.

[axel]

cool mate
you led me know if i cane do somme :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Well, it didn't like the Ligurians much, and I can't see anything wrong with the new faction. I may have corrupted the startpos file, so will have to do it over again. Hate to go to bed on a CTD, as that means I have to start the next session with debugging :no: That's the joy of MTW, it always has something new in store :laugh4:

It's possible it didn't like having FN_21 without an FN_20, so I guess that's where I have to start looking. FN_20 is going to be Ugarit, so might as well get that one in place as well, see if that sorts the CTD :inquisitive:

[macsen rufus]

Good news - now that Ugarit is in there, the Ligurians work as well.... mostly! For some reason they cannot have tribal chariots :inquisitive: What I mean is that they work on the campaign map, can recruit them etc, but every time I try a batttle with them, I get a CTD every time I hit "1 - do battle personally" (or rather at the end of the laoding screen)..... MOST frustrating. I've ruled out most combinations of what can be wrong: same with different faction colours/ shields; same when the chariots are not the royal unit; same whether the Ligurians are human or AI controlled. Same when the same animation is used under a different name. BUT every other faction can use this animation no problem :wall: :wall:

In the end I have invented "Ligurian chariots" using a different chariot animation, and that works fine :2thumbsup:

I think this problem relates to another little bug I've spotted - the tribal chariots and the hittite light chariots (which use the same animation) often have an MTW flag superimposed on the "aim" frames, and it's a different flag for each faction. I don't know where these come from - possibly the old "faction shields" from MTW/XL (it doesn't happen in HTW so far as I can see). So I suspect when this bug is sorted, the Ligurian chariot issue may be sorted too. Meanwhile they have a slightly different chariot to other barbarians ~D

Ugarit works quite well, with a mix of Hittite and Syrian units:

* Hittite Heavy Chariots (BG unit)
* Light chariots
* Tower shield spearmen
* Eastern archers
* Hittite javelinmen
* Eastern swordsmen
* Slingers (of course :beam: )

And also the "all faction" troops in various homeland provinces are available (Lukka pirates, Cretan archers, Aramaean camels, Sherdan mercenaries etc)

I got so engaged "testing" this faction I've played nearly 100yrs of the campaign! Which gave me a chance to watch the rest of the map on God mode. With the Ligurians in place, everything seems remarkably stable in Europe - no faction has been wiped out except the ones I've killed off as Ugarit, most of them still have their original capital/homelands, and no giant steamrollers are evident anywhere. Rebellions are quite common, so holding down a large empire appears quite challenging. The AI is using agents a lot, and the rebels are building ships! So much so I've had to raid a few rebel provinces around the Med and Black Sea just to destroy the shipyards. I also found that the AI is RETRAINING units (another piece of MTW received wisdom shattered!) The proof is that a rebel stack was progressively upgraded for weapons over a few years. One thing that doesn't happen though, is the understrength unit was not brought up to strength when it was retrained, it only got the upgrade.

In this campaign, it seems the strongest AI faction is the Cimmerians, who have taken most of the steppe provinces, and the weakest is the Balts, who did expand but then got pushed back and now hang on miserably in Finland. The Sea Peoples continue to disappoint, and are lurking in their islands nursing a huge overdraft, having lost their entire navy somehow :laugh4: But in the previous campaign they rampaged over over most of Western Europe (though this was before the Ligurians were introduced and ship ranges reduced). Generally though the various territories have ebbed and flowed quite nicely. Switching between factions has produced some interesting insights though. Instead of the usual "spamfest" that AI factions go in for with huge stacks of poor quality troops, quite a few factions have smallish armies of maximally teched-up troops and quite substantial treasuries, so if they did suddenly decide to expand aggressively, they could easily do so...

[western]

Hi Macsen

I had similar with the Romans in Fall of Rome Mod. Everyone else could use ballistas, but if they had them and I played personally, CTD every time. Never did find out what caused it I'm afraid - I just went your route and made ballistas unavailable to them.

I wonder if Ligurians actually had chariots....? Pretty hilly round there today, but I guess their territory used to be much larger!

[axel]

Hi mate s
Yes i think they got chariots and even horses but i am not shure yet
Here s a link : http://pirate.shu.edu/~vigorimi/genealogy/first_millenium_BC.html
http://www.angelfire.com/nm/massimolorenzini/prerome.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot
:2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

@Western: glad I'm not the only one with picky factions, choosing what units they want :laugh4: AFAIK the modern day "Liguria" is only a tiny fraction of the lands once occupied by "Ligurians", being just the Italian part. Seems Ligurian culture spread out at least to Provence, as that's who the Greeks encountered when settling Massilia. As to whether they had chariots, well, I'm guessing they did, but shall go have a look at Axel's links shortly :2thumbsup: They seem to be pretty widespread around Indo-European peoples.

That's the problem with all these illiterate barbarian factions, they didn't leave us much to go on ~D


Hmmm, may need to rethink some of the Italian factions - there's a lot of disagreement between sources over who came from where. I'd always understood Ligurians to be an offshoot of western IE, from a common Celto-Ligurian root, but now I see references to them being related to Iberians (West med group, not IE at all!) And as for Estruscans, well certainly not IE as their language attests, but were they really Aegean immigrants or relict West Med types? If the Aegean myth is true, then they should be removed until the Late era of the mod..... ho hum.... maybe should replace them with Villanovans for early and high?? I need to find the most up to date scholarly opinion on that one ~D

[Bonfire]

if only we still had the libary of alaxndros still in modren day human lives.

then we would be able to historcialy correct info down to the very Capital T.

[macsen rufus]

if only we still had the libary of alaxndros still in modren day human lives.


So true ~:mecry:

Even then there were myths around - it's ironic that we probably know more (through archaeology) about Mycenae than Homer ever did, and yet people still think he's a reliable source....

[Bonfire]

i blame thoes damn arabic+ Persian bastards for burning..

if it wasn't for them we would never know. if homer was right or not.

[axel]

Hi macsen
I hade my first CTD but it did nt show me a message so i have no info of it i am sry mate i started again at the same time where i hade my CTD and then the game played perfect again ill keep you inform mate

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel - tnx for the info - are you still playing the Mycenaeans? Anyway, I guess if it reloaded and continued it's probably just one of those random MTW CTDs :laugh4:

Not quite so much progress this week, I've had a pretty lousy week at work, and haven't really been in the mood for modding - just killing lots of Bronze Age sprites :skull: (I've just wiped out the Hittites and Ugarit with my hordes of Sea Peoples, and Egypt will be next :2thumbsup: )

Even so, there are some new units and a few other tweaks. The Etruscans have their own names now, I've added "Ahhiyawan" heavy infantry for the Sea Peoples (and other barbarians), some other units renamed.

I'll probably add an "Armorican" faction in Brittany and Normandy, then the High Era should be pretty much complete and I can start to sort out the new files for a patch. And I guess I'll put the new factions into the Early startpos as well so it all works.

Then I can look at the Late Era, which will have quite a few differences for unit rosters and yet more new factions etc.

[Bonfire]

i was wonderif you have need of another modder to step up and hel put.

i'f only good at editing text files. graphicsuch as animations and pics incorperated in the game im totaly clueless but when it comes to editing text files. it comes natrul to me.

------------
after words i was wondering if you would be willing to help me witha hudge project after wards. PM or reply

[macsen rufus]

What I really need, Bonfire, is feedback from play-testers - but as I hope to get the next patch out soon, maybe after that :2thumbsup: Then we can get people testing out the High era as well, whilst I start on the Late.

I've still got huge stacks of research stuff to read through (mostly thanks to Axel :2thumbsup: ), and a couple of books on their way from Amazon I'm waiting for. A few new animations would be nice, but I don't really have the tools or the time for that myself. When this one is done, I'll probably put my feet up, complete a campaign or two, and then catch up with all the housework :laugh4: My lawn's not been mown for a month :shame:

[Bonfire]

hmm maybe if you released a beta JUst for custom battle not campaign..

i'll give it a try. and give you major feed back

[macsen rufus]

For some reason custom battles don't work at all :inquisitive:

[axel]

Hi mate
yes i still are playing the Mycenaeans ill be starting a new campain tonight and i am going to play 2 campains ill be back:2thumbsup:

[Bonfire]

ok.. send me the link and i will download andplay the campagin beta you got. and give ya feed back or are you talking about your bronze age for htw. not the xl. cause i got the htw. already and xl. but im assuming feed back oyu need is from the htw bronze for xl .. in which cause i do have the mod.

[macsen rufus]

It's the stand-alone "Ancient" mod for XL (not the HTW BA scenario) where I need the feedback, and if anyone needs a link, get it here :2thumbsup:

Ancient TW beta install (http://www.mydatabus.com/public/macsenrufus/z/ANCIENTBETAINSTALL.zip)

I guess "Bronze Age" isn't too great a name for the new mod, as a) it causes confusion with the HTW BA scenario, and b) only the early era is truly the (Late) Bronze Age. From High era onwards we're really in the early iron age (at least as far as the Near East is concerned) ~D

BUT there will be a new version out, with the High Era - I still need to go back and tweak the Early era to work with the same prod files, and then should be able to release both a new install, and a patch to upgrade from the original install above.

Version 2 will include: new units, new factions, new tech tree, and a new era.

[Bonfire]

now i have somthing to do instead of twiddling my thumbs eat and smoke cigs while reaosionf my lore on lord of the rings instaed i can be haelping oyu beta.....

lord of the rings beta 2.0 for alexanders hould be out very soon.

this will keep my preocupied until then.

keep up the good work. and for less DL time. the next thing should just be a patch. with the included facitons.

well its close ot 300 MB i geus iw ill go make dinner. i'll reply ina couple days when i had the chance to play the map fully.

[Bonfire]

some of the things i notice right off the bat..

seeing how you want ppls opion being it your first beta.

1. you didn't make it into a install wizard.exe

2. the assyrian tribe last time i check were hannibals and ther fortress i mean walls were made out of wood and impaled corpse they ate.. its also why the hitties invaded them cause they were feeding off the colonies around there empire.

3 they also had seige equipment along with everybody else... you didn't include a battering ram for custom play.. this seriosuly limits game play to only non castle defences.

i'll get more back to you as i see it.

[Bonfire]

your instalation method won't work because. when you copy and past the content within the folder all it does is overwrite the folders. not the files within it. and that will mes up your MTW contect and cause CTD..

[Bonfire]

did you jsut want me to test the custom play . or the campaign cause i did the method you told me about in yor read me but there is a file mising. load_table somthing 0_0000 error

[macsen rufus]

Hi Bonfire - don't see why it gave you a missing file error - there are a few other folks out there have installed it okay (and I tested it myself as a fresh install on my own machine.) Are you fully patched up on MTW VI and XL? XL version I use is 2.1 Lite (ie no music pack). Windows will overwrite any files in directories that have the same name. Do you have the EXACT error message it gives, might be a clue in there?

Quite true - I haven't done an installer :beam: Maybe when it's finished, but not top of my list.

I don't know where you were reading about the Assyrians being cannibals (I assume you mean cannibals?) but that's the first time I've heard that one. Sounds like Hittite or possibly Israelite-captivity propaganda. Either way in the era they were amongst the most advanced, not least advanced, peoples.

There is no siege equipment because it hadn't been invented yet. The game ends 700BC approx, battering rams not attested before 600BC approx, and these were Assyrian - still I might put them in for the Late Era, even if they are a little bit anachronistic (some sources suggest something rudimentary in the 900 or 800s BC, but not conclusively). Before that there were only siege towers and ladders, neither of which MTW can do, and undermining - so I might make a "mining team" as Cegorach used in PMTW, though, as one way of dealing with stone walls.

As mentioned earlier in the thread custom battles DON'T WORK! If you could find out why, that would be a help. (Personally I never play custom battles, if it's not part of a campaign the battle means nothing to me ~D But I appreciate some folks like one-off battles, so it would be nice to get custom battles functioning :2thumbsup: )

[Bonfire]

one thing i notice while playing the gernamic tried. after about 40-50 years go by the armies began to grow and there were no rebel lands well.

lets jsut say this. make a rebel unit to 120 only recruitable by rebels. and all it takes is a castle not castle1-castle9 what ever.. only recruitable by rebels.


reduce all the unit size of all factions by 50% beside the rebel unit.. in the rebel build prod have them focus more on this unit.. if they have a castle/fort

this way nations take longer to expand. unless there adjacent border is that of another tribe.

i pretty much finished testing the gernamic tried i have completle control ofte sea regions in the north and brittania is under my control/including ireland.

after taking over it the faction under me (would be russians)

have so much military power due to the expense in which unts can be produced i had no way to fend off there attacks.

maybe raising the units that factions are allowed to be made by an extra 100 and lil higher support cost..so they don't raise so many troops..

[Bonfire]

man i hate not being able to edit my post..


anyways.. its either lower the income production or higher the support cost to reduce such large forces.

in all of it comes down to ..

lower unit size-higher support

rebels have unique unit only they can make. make it 100 or 120 give it also 2 morale starting. to prevent expansion of all factions..

alter the rebels so they don't expand but only defend.

reduce all faction unit size to disable such fast expansions..

reduce farm and income production to way lower numbers.

increase unit cost. and support so factions don't expand as fast.

create new unit for all factions that are specificaly there kings-prince

not just same unit as regular solidary. give them one morale apon training.
aand 3 years to create.. i.e greeks have a hoplite specifacly for there kings pricne along with all factions..
--------

mess with the nations offices to give minmal 3-4 acum so you can put the tital to the right officer incharge of that nation.. so you can get the best money/income production by the use of strategy.....

your farm production rate is too much even without the title/office

lowering income and having the titles increase income is better balance.. and forces players to save certain units for better income..

see if you can't mess with the ship production's and bring all the ships from the orignal hellic total war.

no ships form MTW -viking ships weren't used tell after the dark ages/middle roman empire.....

some of the building produciton pics apon trainin only have a black box for pic..

if i think of any more i'll let you know im gonan try playing the greek nation next... and give oyu feed back...

[Antalis::]

Hi:

I remember, that making HTW was an exciting and wonderful time. I have tried your mod and I like it. Its nice to see that our work is alife in your mod: Like units, landscapes.


I wish you good luck with your mod. :balloon2:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Antalis - thanks for that :bow:

HTW was the first mod I ever tried and at the time it blew my socks off, as well as giving me the impetus to have a go at some modding myself. I still think the HTW maps are the best I've seen for MTW, by the way. Are you still in touch with Komninos? I've tried to PM him, but guess he doesn't visit any more. Anyway, it's great fun setting the HTW BA warriors loose on a larger scene :2thumbsup:

@Bonfire - thanks for the ideas - some of the factors I've already addressed, so the next version is better on the economy side already, and also with some more factions there are fewer rebel provinces to worry about (and you'll also find it a bit harder to take Britain with the Prytani in place, forcing the Germanics to tackle their continental rivals sooner...). The farming has been reduced, and I have a couple of trade tweaks to do as well (making tin more valuable than copper, for one). Some of the factions do find the cash pretty tight now, so have to concentrate on development rather than armies in the early game. Actually I usually play on hard or expert, so the starting cash is lower as well - perhaps I'll reduce that, force some choices of priority to be made early on.

The "MTW" ships do need some new graphics and descriptions, but I will keep the choices limited, as most of the HTW types are too "futuristic" for the era. I'm looking for something usable like the Ulu Burun or Cape Gelidonya wreck types. Also evidence points to Nordic ships being very similar to the Mycenaean ones, but I'm still researching that one.

As for the titles, there's not a lot of change from the XL defaults yet, I've changed a few, but mostly names rather than the stats - there's more to do, as I still have things like "Censor of Genoa" in there :no: . The barbarians get quite a good "office" from the pagan sacrifical shrine, which makes it well worth giving to the governor of the best province :beam:

And yes, the little black squares on the building completed parchments. I haven't found where they live yet, so all the new buildings get the little black square until I do. I usually play with the "non-critical messages" turned off, so I don't normally see these (I find it really irritating if a parchment pops up for every single building completed in that year, not to mention the sound effect :no: ) I shall keep looking for these and once they're found, I can add the new ones in there!

[Antalis::]

Hi Antalis - thanks for that :bow:

I still think the HTW maps are the best I've seen for MTW, by the way. Are you still in touch with Komninos? I've tried to PM him, but guess he doesn't visit any more. Anyway, it's great fun setting the HTW BA warriors loose on a larger scene :2thumbsup:


Thank you. ~:cheers:


No, sorry. Its quite a long time ago since I was in contact with komninos.



Antalis

[Bonfire]

the pics of building are in campmap/reveiwpannel

there is tga. and there diffrent folders for the diffrent relgion/culture.

as for your reply awsome but seriosuly i beg ya get workin on the proncie title so the person you assign it too gets more Acum so you don't disband or use that guy in war.

also in the start money of the campagin have easy 4k then 3k then 2k then 1k.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Bonfire

The campmap/reviewpanel graphics are for the training/building panel. These are all in place, likewise the campmap infopics are also all in place. I will keep looking for the others ..... :magnify:

I don't want to go overboard on province titles - that was one area in HTW I wasn't totally happy with, as by the time you'd given out the titles, all your governers had nine feathers straight away and the economy was booming. I want more of a struggle in Ancient. You shouldn't be able to start with anything "maxed out" IMHO. So I might do some selective improvements for titles, and/or add more offices (I'm going to have "Chariot master" office for the eastern kingdoms, at least).

I will turn down the starting cash, the one exception being the Sea Peoples, as they have quite a few ships they can get bankrupted too easily for the AI to use them properly, but it's a good faction for the player, who can role play a bit better :beam: I think maybe the eastern kingdoms should have a slightly bigger pot to start with as well.

Right, I better get on and do some work now, that's the propblem with only having internet access at work :oops:

[macsen rufus]

Yay! I found the missing infopics, they are in campmap/infopics/coloured folder, so now there are a lot fewer little black squares, but I still have a few more to do. I also overhauled the frontend, so Ancient:TW now has it's own splash screen, and a few other bits tweaked to add to the atmosphere.

Added miners now, for undermining those walls, trainable -- surprisingly enough -- only at mines, with a valour bonus from a mine complex (and also in Algarve). This should keep their numbers low as they won't be available everywhere, and most factions will have some sort of mine somewhere in their homeland (though not all of them).

In the process of testing the miners I launched another Alisyan campaign (cos they start the game with a mine already in place), and I had a terrible time with acumen - I'd trained over 30 units, and got to my second king before I had a single unit with 4 feathers (my usual minimum for governors). I don't think I've ever seen such a dimwitted faction before :laugh4:

[Bonfire]

rofl.

yeah the one faction i just don't like playing period is the danes there acum problem is the worst. i went through 20 units before i got acum 3. maybe it was just my bad luck but anyways.

[macsen rufus]

Dimwits they may be, but my Alisyans have just trashed the Egyptian empire. Nothing personal, it's just that they kept sinking our ships, and they had a nice big castle for my miners to practice on :laugh4: I spent quite a while tweaking them, and I think the next thing is to reduce the unit size a bit, or their "ammo", just to make it a bit more touch and go as to whether they can succeed and give the defenders more of a chance. I've been trying to make their operation "unsafe" (ie like an exploding gun) but it doesn't seem to work if there is no model with the unit - and if there was a model they wouldn't be able to move, so it looks like a busted flush. I had plans to relabel the "Your gun has exploded" message to "Your tunnel has collapsed". The other alternative is to try making a model like the one used in RTW assaults and increase the range of the miners (so they can be deployed), but that would probably be a bit naff, especially with some of the new maps and double-walled castles.

[Bonfire]

so your still workin on the next version. lets hope this time its in a single install.

try to have it include all the xl working too a full beta version so one doesn't need to install xl or the xl patch.

your install will include it already.

[western]

Hey Bonfire, Macsen isn't on a wage for doing this. How about we thank the man for not keeping this to himself? :2thumbsup: And if he wants to focus effort on the creative side, moving a few files to install isn't so hard.

But like you, I'm itching to see what is in the next release. Hope it's all going smoothly:yes:

[Bonfire]

western he knows full well that im gratefull for his hard work. after all it is his mod.

but if thanks are in order alright.

hascun your the shit. seriosuly if i wasn't going to jail possibly on the 25th i would go to your house with stripers and beer. seriosuly.

(your welcome for the semi sarcastic praising)

[Bonfire]

hey mascen im here to inform you that i could possible be in jail for 2-3 mths for probathion violation and that im to apear in court tommorrow may 25th and if i don't come back here tommorrow evening to reply that i won't be back for 2-3 mths i had fun with your mod and i was looking forward to your next reaslse but i geus i will miss it. later buddy .

[macsen rufus]

Hi all - sorry no updates for a while - been catching up on some research and fielding interruptions from real-life. (and I admit I took a little excursion into a Lithuanian XL campaign for light relief :shame: ) Ok Bonfire, hope to see you back sooner rather than later, anyway, so keep safe :2thumbsup: .

I'll be getting on the update/new install next, I'm about at a point where that makes sense to do. (Gotta keep drip-feeding the fanbase, after all ~D) then I'll move on to doing the Late Era and make a few more tweaks. Which would take us on to Beta 3. Anyway, it'll be worth the wait and I hope you like the front-end changes, the whole look is a lot more "bronzey" now :book:

More next week :charge:

[axel]

Hi Macsen
ill be waithing :2thumbsup:
Bonfire good luck i know the feeling

[Bonfire]

im a free man as of 11 am may 25th im not on probation anymore

for my probation violation all i have left is 3 days alternative jail time and my fine as for that i can drink and party woohoo...

[western]

Hi Macsen
You know you had that business with the Ligurians - a unit wouldn't work for them that worked for everyone else? I've got the same issue on Fall of Rome - SarmatianCav crash the Mod for the Romans faction only. Byzantines fine, everyone else fine, fight battle as the Romans - crash. Did you have/find any ideas as to what makes this happen for just one faction??:dizzy2:

[Inuyasha12]

Awesome, just awesome. I've always wanted to play an ancient world mod, Hellenic was great, but it was on a way too small a scale, this is perfect. Downloading your mod right now, i'll tell you how it goes. I never thought that i would play MTW again after Rome, but after checking the mtw boards again, i don't know why really, i found your thread and couldn't wait to try out this mod.
Anyways, thanks for your excellent work on this.

[macsen rufus]

Morning all - I now have a patch and a version 2 install together, and I should be able to get them posted up tomorrow. I just have a little bit more testing to do to make sure everything is in there! I was up til 1am last night pinning down a CTD, so didn't have time to burn the CD before getting to work today (yes, working on a Bank Holiday sucks, so my revenge is more time on the Org ~D )

Most of it worked fine, but the Egyptian campaign crashed before opening, and .matteosartori. crashed from the camp map, but I could play a few years no problems away from the south-east of the map. Eventually, playing with spies and ships etc, I worked out it was when Libyan territory was in view. Then it twigged I had missed out the Libyan castle flag.... put that back in and no more CTDs :2thumbsup: Then I went to bed :laugh4: So I'm 99% sure the patch and version 2 installs are now complete, but should be 100% tonight.

Just to be sure: the patch (approx 15Mb uncompressed) will upgrade the last release to version 2, but I will also release a new full install v2 which will do the whole job from scratch (ie a clean install of XL).

@Western, no I didn't get to the bottom of the Ligurian chariot problem, in the end I just went for the work-around, used a different animation and made a new unit for them. So basically the problem is not solved (one of my wise old bosses once told me that a problem is never solved until its cause is known, and those words have stuck with me for years since :2thumbsup: ) I'm fairly sure it has something to do with flags, and the bug relating to MTW flags showing up in the animation frame, but how, why, where, I really don't know!

And Bonfire, good to see you back, you must have said something right and been nice to the man :2thumbsup:

And welcome Inuyasha, thanks for the kind words, hope you enjoy the mod! Look forward to your feedback.

So fingers crossed, links to the new release tomorrow :charge:

[axel]

Yihaaaaa gg mate ill downloading tomorow

[Bonfire]

from 8 am to 4 in the afternoon i will be doing community service from tuesday to thursday thne on friday will be my full time off but i need that day to prepare further for tommorrow saturday im having a bonfire in celebreation of my conquering of the government....

so sunday is lookin like i will have time to play it i do know that i will Dl the version 2 tommorrow after i get back from community service.

great job mascun and i will hand you a beer drink up and relax you deserve it.

:beam: :beam: cheers :beam: :beam:

[macsen rufus]

:balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2: The Patch is Ready! :balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2:

Okay folks, get your modems warmed up! The patch is now ready, to convert your Ancient TW beta 1 into Ancient TW beta 2.

Get it here (http://www.mydatabus.com/public/macsenrufus/AncientPatch189.zip) (10Mb)

Unfortunately there is NOT a complete new install at present as the zip file was too big for my file server with all the new stuff in it, so you will have to patch the original install for now, until I either take some (spare) stuff out or get a paid fileserver account for larger files.

Here's the contents of the readme file:

ANCIENT TW beta 1.0 -- PATCH 1 installation notes
==================================================

Intro: after playing the Bronze Age scenario in Hellenic TW I long harboured yearnings to make a "whole Europe" Bronze Age scenario, using the units from HTW. Here it is, at least in beta form.

Installation:

THIS PATCH WILL UPGRADE THE ANCIRNT BETA ver 1 to ver 2. IT IS NOT A FULL INSTALL. You must first have Ancient beta 1 installed.

The patch is NOT save-game safe, so all your old Ancient TW campaigns will no longer work. If you want to finish them, make a second copy of your entire Ancient TW folder, and patch the copy.

In the copy of Ancient that you wish to patch, first delete all save games (.cpg files), all existing unit_prod and build_prod files (in the main Ancient TW folder) and all startpos files in campmap/startpos. This is to save confusing the game and player alike!

Unzip the patch into a new folder then select all, and copy directly into your Ancient TW folder (if in doubt, you should be able to see the TW .exe file when you "paste" the files). When prompted about replacing files, say "Yes to all". That's all there is to it!

What You Get:
=============

This patch adds a new era ("The Catastrophe") beginning in 1200BC, and introduces a few new factions: The Sea Peoples, Ugarit, the Prytani (ie the Wessex-Brittany Culture), the Ligurians and Cimmerians, plus a dozen or so new units.

Also there are a few front-end changes to make the overall appearance more "bronzey", the economy has been tweaked a bit, and a few changes have been made to ships.



As a work in progress, there are additions to be made to unit rosters, extra factions to include, and later eras to develop. Any ideas and feedback gladly welcomed at the Org.

CREDIT where it's due: VikingHorde for making the map this mod goes on to, the Hellenic TW team for all the units and battle maps that have been recycled, Cegorach for some neat ideas nicked from PMTW, and all the support, research and encouragement from Axel, Dimitrios the Samian, Pericles and Western.



Macsen Rufus
29/05/07

[western]

Hi Macsen

The good news - patch dowloaded and installed fine. Looks great.
The bad news - I've had 2 CTDs on the Catastrophe, each a different year but within 10 turns of starting, one as Ugarit and one as Assyria. No clues offered - occurred in normal campaign play at end year, not on transition to battle. Most frequent cause I have encountered in the past is errors concerning borders/neighbours, but since you have re-used the XL map, it shouldn't be that. I have made no changes at all to the download, so it shouldn't be me either!

I wait to see if others report the same problems - and I will keep on playing to see if any clues emerge.

From what I've seen up to now, the look and play of the Mod seem really good. I want this CTD dead!!:skull:

[axel]

Hi mate
i am glad the patch is reddy but again i got the same problem downloading like the first time lol ill try to download tomorow mate :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

@Western - thanks for that - oops! Don't know where that might be, then.

I'm currently doing a Sea Peoples campaign in my Install 2 version, and have just managed to wipe out Ugarit, and went to bed when the Assyrians attacked, as I didn't have time to fight the battle last night. So we're in the same region. I'll see if anything crops up.

Can you do a quick test for me, and .matteosartori. the campmap? I suspect it might be because you are seeing something for the first time after the 10yrs or so - if so the reveal should cause a crash too. Unfortunately, if it crashes you can't tell what it is you've just seen ~D. It will probably relate to a faction piece or a region at a guess. Any chance you recall what you were building and training at the time? And maybe try sending an emissary on a tour of your neighbours' provinces, see if he causes it to crash.

Meanwhile I shall do a fresh install from the patch alone (I used my "full" v2 install that is too big to get online, so it's possible there's a difference in some file or another....:oops: )

[western]

Macsen

Here's a quick update. Matteosartori doesn't crash it. I discovered one small bug - no infopic for Hittite spearmen. I corrected that and had one crash subsequent at 211, when as Ugarit I was sitting at home churning out tower spearmen and building stables I think - don't think either of those caused the crash because I've done the same lots of times without ill effects.

The good news is that still as Ugarit, I've played twice to 230 without a crash. Also once as Egypt. No faction seems to have disappeared early in those games, which might have led one to suspect they were the problem faction if they had.

So it's a bit of a puzzle. 3 crashes in 6 games, none after 211. One small bug found, but that can't be the culprit. Investigation continues:inquisitive:

[macsen rufus]

I think I may have the answer for your CTD, Western. I've just taken a quick look at the patch I re-downloaded, and there are a couple of bits missing for Hittite spearmen. So I will need to re-upload those bits in a new patch tomorrow, but for now I suggest you try the following:

* campmap/Info_Pics/Units: copy/rename "spearmen.bif" --> "Hit_spear.bif"
* Battle/UnitIcons: copy/rename "spearmen.lbm" --> "Hit_spear.lbm"

I reckon that should fix it. But to confirm that, find a Hittite spear unit you can see (Hittites have them as starting garrisons) and right-click on it. This should cause a CTD as the info_pic is missing. And of course if you try to go to battle against any Hittite spears, that will also crash. Did you get into battle with the Hittites for any of the crashes?

EDIT: aha, I see we were writing posts at the same time! Hope you're enjoying Ugarit, it's one of my favourite factions at the moment :beam:

[western]

Hi Macsen

It's a great fun Mod, well balanced and demanding - but I'm still getting crashes despite fixing the Hit_spear thing. I've had 3 more as Ugarit - 205, 207 and 224. If you reload, they will repeat, so it isn't just a random thing. All have occurred when the pieces are sliding round the map at end turn. But like I said before, if this is unchanged XL map, it shouldn't be a neighbours/borders error. Any ideas?? It occurs even when matteosartori isn't on, so doesn't that mean it is localised to the factions you can see, which are basically just the middle east ones? Could it have anything to do with emissary movement, which goes further afield?~:confused:

[axel]

hi mate
i cant download the patch it only give s me a empty file 7.4 kb ?? help me :help:

[macsen rufus]

I'm now uploading a fresh copy of the patch with the Hittite spearmen corrections. Same file name so should still work from the original link.

@Western, yeah, I managed to recreate your CTD as well. I tried yet another new install (you don't really want to know how many copies of MTW/VI/XL/Mods there are on my hard-drive :beam: ) and copied in the original ancient install, plus the patch (as corrected above) and launched a Ugarit campaign. Unlike many people I always do a quicksave at the end of every year, it's become an autoamtic series of keystrokes for me (ctrl-S, space, enter....)

In about year 205 I had a CTD, same as you, whilst the pieces were moving around. All I could "see" at this point was just what the Ugarit watch-towers revealed. I'm pretty sure that the last thing that happened before I was interrupted by my wallpaper was a rebel stack from Syria started moving towards me, as though they were about to invade. Now rebel attacks are rare as hen's teeth, so I could be wrong, it was just an impression of movement at a part of the screen I wasn't quite looking at..... By this point I had turned .matteosartori. on and off, so it was nothing "permanent" on the campmap causing it. Generally, on the campmap, if you can't see it, it can't hurt you :beam:

When I reloaded and tried again (without changing anything), it worked okay and the game continued. But the rebel stack did not move - but that is often the case, a quick-save will delay AI invasions in some instances. Since then I've taken Syria (fighting the very army that would have invaded, if it had continued, so I don't think it was the army which caused it after all) and I've now gone past 211 (no thanks to the Alisyans :furious3: ) and so far no further crashes. I strongly suspect Syria is at the root of the regional instability, and like you I'm thinking along the lines of agents (I'll try to refrain from backroomish comments, here ~D).

I can't help wondering if I made any changes to agents since the first install, but really don't recall anything. Except required buildings for emissaries, hmmmmmm..............

I shall have another look tonight, anyway.


@Axel -- maybe mydatabus.com just doesn't like you :laugh4: I think last time it was down to bandwidth, so it could be again, as I see there's been a bit of activity overnight (more complete installs been downloaded as well as a few patches). We're now on to a new day's bandwidth "ration" so give it another go.

EDIT: yes, I've just checked my email and there is a bandwidth limit warning in there....

[western]

Hi Macsen

While poking around, I spotted one thing (sadly not crash related). GR_Dendra don't have a weapon. I copied Myc_Chariot weapon and that seemed to work fine.

Good luck with the CTD. I'll keep snooping around too.

Sea peoples seem nicely aggressive, so you obviously got on top of that issue.

[macsen rufus]

GR_Dendra don't have a weapon.

:oops: I think that's something I changed in my working copy but forgot to carry across to the update....

... or maybe the power of the epetis lies in the way the warriors wave their arms around at the enemy :laugh4:

Glad the Sea Peoples are putting up bit of a fight - now they have the "Viking" slot they have bucked up their ideas a bit, and I also gave them discounts on quite a few unit types. True to form they do tend to raze provinces to the ground once they invade.

[axel]

Hi mate
still cant get it :embarassed:

[macsen rufus]

@Axel -- I'm mystified - it does look like it's just you, once again :embarassed: It has been downloading for others okay. So, do you have any pop-up blockers, download managers, or an unusual internet browser?

All I can suggest for now is keep trying, like last time. (I've just remade the link as the "new" patch hadn't replaced the "old" patch properly, so anyone who tried to get the Hittite spear corrections will need to try again, sorry folks...)

@ Western: I'm getting more confused by this CTD - I had one in the Assyrian campaign, too, so actually made a savegame for the previous turn, then have been switching factions etc to test it from different angles. Unfortunately I can't switch across to Ugarit as the FN number is too high for -ian to work, but found that it crashes with the Cimmerians, Assyrians, and SOMETIMES the Hittites, but is fine for all other factions. Which seems like it might take the blame away from Syria and drop it on the Hittites instead (obviously when I switch factions they don't do what the AI was going to do that move....)

What really throws me though, is that carrying the savegame across to my development copy ALSO results in a CTD. And I've never had a CTD from any campaign started in that copy of the mod.... :inquisitive: I haven't finished testing all the factions around the CTD in the development copy, so not 100% sure yet.

More later, must go do some work :clown:

EDIT: I've put the download links in a sticky so you don't have to trawl the whole thread to find them now :beam:

[axel]

Hi mate
I still cant download i tryed right click and save i even put off my pop up killer and norton ??? dont know why this happens i never did have problems downloading anything at all mate ill keep trying :dizzy2:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel -- could still be bandwidth - there's been a surprising surge in activity :beam: . But I also tried from the links in the new thread - right-click/save-as doesn't work - it will just give you a page from the mydatabus.com site, which is about 8kB. You need to use the left-click. I guess you've probably already tried this, though.

I'm still trying to pin down the cause of the CTDs, and it's very difficult finding any differences in the two installs I have. There are a quite a few 'original' files and folders which I've deleted from my development copy that still remain from a clean install, though, so I wonder if there may be some sort of clash arising.

I don't think this is the cause, but in my new install, I have just deleted the campmap/reviewpanel/agents/Pagan folder as the pagan factions were getting the XL graphics for agents. Since then I've gone nearly 50 years as Ugarit without a hint of a CTD - but this is probably pure coincidence of course!

[western]

Hi Macsen

Here's something that may narrow your search a bit.:beam: I had one crash after receiving message that "sea peoples have decided that they cannot win the battle and are retreating". That made me think could be unitprod related (since moves were completed and it was possibly the effort to muster an army of rebels that was causing crash). Tried deleting the "rebelling troop mixes" entries for the post-patch units. Still got crashes. So then I tried importing the unitprod file from the pre-patch version. Since then 4 Catastrophe campaigns (3 Ugarit, 1 Assyria) and no crashes.

If crashes have stopped, therefore seems to be related to having a unitprod file without post-patch units. I don't understand how - previously crashes seemed to occur most often after an Egyptian stack moved into rebel territory, but I'm not sure either that there is a rebel connection or how that would work:dizzy2:

Could be that I'm counting chickens too soon - I'll let you know. But I thought I'd give you these clues at least in the hope that they are helpful.:yes:

[macsen rufus]

Hi Western,

That's interesting - though I must admit I don't see how you can use the old unitprod without it crashing right out, as there'll be quite a few units in the startpos that are from the latest unitprod (Sea Peoples start with Lukka Pirates, for example), so I guess you've removed these units from the startpos :inquisitive:

IIRC all the new units are: Hittite spears, Nakhtu-aa heavy inf (+ jav throwing equivalent), Lukka Pirates, Ahhiyawan foot, miners, tribal hunters, Cimmerian spears, Cimmerian archers, Cimmerian warband, Ligurian chariots and Libyan spears.

I'll certainly have a close look at the "rebel troop mix" columns as well, as you probably guess a lot are just cut and pasted, so maybe the figures don't all add up.... and it's not something I've really spent much time on so far.

Anyway, it all helps to narrow it down :2thumbsup: The other thing that seems to be a constant in the crashes seems to be having the area around Cilicia/Ugarit visible, and I don't think I've seen any after the rebel provinces have all be taken by factions, either.

Another thing that confuses me is that the development copy doesn't crash at all (except when I copied a game over from the patched install). Obviously this means it has to be some element which goes into the savegame data, as well. I'd have thought by now we'd have enough patterns to find where they overlap, but they all seem to be pointing in different directions!

The one BIG difference between my dev and re-installed copies is that I cleaned out a lot of "old stuff" from the dev copy (like the XL pagan shaman bits etc). Which means the solution might be to get an installer package which can do some deletions before the install. For the life of me I can't remember which package HTW uses, that worked well, and I think it was the same one Cegorach used for PMTW. I shall try and get hold of it and maybe that would help us get a cleaner install done (and maybe even get the full package down below 250Mb again ~D) Hmmmmmmmm...

Anyway, thanks for the insights, and keep it coming :2thumbsup:

[axel]

Hi mate
still cant download it yet really dont know wot the problem is??? it downloads everything else on total war forum:wall:
is it possible for you to mail it to me??? please

[macsen rufus]

Hi Axel - all I can suggest is keep trying, there's still lots of activity - my daily bandwidth has been exceeded every day since the patch went up. I don't think I can send 10Mb emails, unfortunately, but if you PM me your address I'll give it a go, or maybe do it as a few smaller ones.

Regarding the CTDs, I have done yet another new install, this time removing LOADS of old MTW and XL files first (I only found one that I had to put back in ~D). In this latest version I've managed 71 years of the Ugarit campaign without a single CTD. So fingers crossed.... I shall continue testing this and post up a list of files to be removed, so if nothing else works, a fresh install should do the trick.

EDIT:

I've added the list of files to be removed into the sticky with the download links. I've now played over 100years of the Ugarit campaign without crashes on this install, so it looks like it might be stable at last. I'm not 100% sure WHY this has worked (if it really has!) but maybe it's to do with the XL pagan pieces/infopics/reviewpanel graphics???

I'll have a go with Assyria as well, and if that holds up too, I'll carry on with more "creative" stuff (more units, titles, buildings etc) :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Another quick update: since the re-install by the new method (see the sticky) I've also played 50yrs of Assyria without CTD, and about 40 of Thrace. So I'd definitely suggest everyone does a re-install, and compare notes from that.

Meanwhile I'm progressing with a few new bits again :2thumbsup:

- rebels have "regional" names now ("Brian of Aramaea" just looked WRONG outside a Monty Python context :laugh4: )
- some changes to titles/offices to increase variety
- minor startpos changes so factions don't have start units they can't retrain (come in, Hittite spearmen of Ugarit, your time is up ~D)

Forthcoming changes:
- some changes the the mineral distribution to take account of real Bronze Age mining centres
- Assyrian army will get some reforms with units to be dvided between "sab sharri" (militia/conscript level), "kisir sharuti" (standing army) and "qurubti sa shepe" (royal bodyguard/elite units), with varying homelands
- more faction-specific buildings to allow "foreign" troops away from homelands (but not too many...)
- more region-specific units to add some incentive to take certain provinces (Kaskan mountaineers, Chaldean skirmishers, Carpathian swordsmen (to replace current Tribal Swords province bonus), Steppe Chariots etc etc). I still want more variety in mainland Europe, as the pagan factions still seem pretty similar.
- I'm about ready to start on the Late Era (roughly corresponds to Greek Geometric period, so the Greeks will get some interesting changes in unit roster) which should see some quite large changes on the campmap starting positions, with new factions, changed "homelands" etc.

Finally, Axel has reported a CTD from a right-click on Assyrian archers. Has anyone else had a similar problem?

[macsen rufus]

I've started on the Late scenario now, but there'll be quite a bit to do, so maybe something to show for it in a week or two. I'm importing more HTW units, and building new factions now.

Meanwhile I've changed the unit roster for the Illyrians, added a "Nordic halberdier" for the Germanics (based on a Bronze Age hoard - the weapon isn't much like the halberds we all know and love from later eras, but that's what the archaeologists call it anyway ~D), Carpathian swordsmen kick some butt, Chaldean skirmishers are in, the Etruscans have been beefed up, and a few changes have been made to homelands and levels of development. A few more province names have been changed to something less modern....

I've also found the source of the installer used by so many other mods, so should be a smaller download and a simpler install in the future.

More news as it comes in.... :charge:

[axel]

:2thumbsup: Hi mate
gg ill be waithing and playing :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Late period is shaping up - imported about 20 more units from HTW last night, and no crashes so far, though I do need to do some renaming :2thumbsup: I've already renamed some factions - Mycenaeans have become the Hellenes, Hittites are now the Neo-Hittites and Ugarit has been replaced by the Phoenicians. Starting provinces have been changed to take account of the big empires all having shrunk a bit around 980BC (Assyria just has Mesopotamia now, and Egypt is just Egypt.... Egypt will struggle as her armies didn't develop much, but playing as Assyria with the reformed army it should be quite possible to rebuild the "Neo-Assyrian empire" of Shalmaneser etc)

Tonight I plan to make a start on the Israelites and Phrygians, but I wanted to be sure the new units were working first.... Not many changes yet to northern/western Europe, but they will get some cavalry, and better armour.

[macsen rufus]

I've added the Phrygians successfully, and they now exert quite the hegemony over Asia Minor, with Arzawa (Nicaea), Armenia, Trebizond and Hatti (Rum) under their control. Only one fly in the ointment -- the Phrygian Cavalry cause a CTD going into battle.... could be another 'Ligurian chariot' situation as they're essentially the same animation as the Assyrian's Qurubti sa Shepe guard cavalray unit, which works just fine :inquisitive: I shall try some alternatives tonight.

I also finally got to the bottom of the faction shield bug on some of the animations (where MTW shields were showing up on chariots etc). It was all tied in to the faction shields for things like Chiv Sergeants etc. I have a solution, so will post up a "Bug fix" tomorrow, so keep an eye on the "Downloads" sticky. This will then be included in the next full patch/install. I'm also going to take a look at the deadpage tonight, and if I can get it working I'll include it with the Bug Fix :2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

Roll up, roll up, the dead bodies are here (http://www.mydatabus.com/public/macsenrufus/AncientTWBugFix21Jun07.exe) :beam:

Further to yesterday's post, the faction shield issue is NOT 100% fixed, but it is a workaround for the current release. I'm going to have to make more changes for the next version. In short, the problem boils down to this: that any unit which uses an animation folder that MTW normally associates with units using faction shields cannot be used by any faction above FN_20. Which obviously means that adding new factions is going to be a right :daisy:, and even though these units can be kept out of the trainable unit roster, they could still be acquired by bribery and will cause a CTD on battle.

I've been trawling through the archives to see what other modders have discovered on this, so I have a few more ideas to try, it looks like I may have to juggle animations into different folders and simply not use the 6 that are affected.

[cegorach]

There are two unused entries in animation folders - if you don't know that already.

Pesonally I am using those CTD-ing folders in PMTW, but limit their use to very rare, non-mercenary units of some most advanced levels of requirements, but I suspect you don't need to use such folders - I am because I really needed them...:sweatdrop:

[cegorach]

Sadly MORE than 6 are affected m8. I will have a look around and check - I remember discovering one affected folder myself.

[Ignoramus]

I suggest if you have free faction slots to put the Edomites in Sinai. I have the New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, and the Edomites were around that area in 900 B.C.

[macsen rufus]

Hi all,

Yes - Cegorach, you're right, it is actually 8 folders, 6 was bit of a typo/bad memory :laugh4:

I've got the 2 spare ones (MONGHKAV and MAILSURCOAT, I think), even after rejuggling all the others. Those 8 are now totally unused, so any faction can use any unit, AND there's still room for expansion :2thumbsup:

I surprised myself yesterday when I tried labelling the Israelites as REL_JEWISH - it WORKED! Even though their "culture" is set to orthodox, the religion works fine as Jewish. I originally set them up as completely orthodox, with the plan of renaming orthodox to Jewish later, but thought, well I'll give it a try - the worst that can happen is a CTD. But it didn't, so I was well chuffed ~D

Had a few issues with historicity though - the archaeology and external sources all disagree with the Bible, and my aim is not to court too much controversy with this, so I've decided to go along with the King David/King Solomon succession that everyone is familiar with :yes: What is clear though is that at that time there were ructions in the religious affairs of the Jews (Aaronid Levites had effectively taken control from the Mushite Shiloh priests) and caused the religious affairs to be centralised in the Jerusalem temple of Solomon. This is probably the cause of many Bilblical inconsistentcies and contradictions - each faction rewriting bits to suit themselves. So the religious buildings available are tabernacles (which train Shiloh priests) and the Temple of Solomon (unique + cathedral income) which trains Levite High Priests. Due to the controversy of these reforms, the Levites not only raise Jewish faith, they also raise that of heretics.

I originally overdid the "faith propagation" of the Temple of Solomon - at first it was set so high that when the Temple was completed all the surrounding provinces became 100% Jewish straight away! I know the Ark of the Covenant was supposed to be powerful, but that was a bit much, I thought :laugh4:

So far the unit roster for the Israelites is:

Israelite Chariots (BG) -- dismount as tower shield spearmen
Parashim (beefed up Saharan Cav, NOT afraid of camels ~D) -- dismount as eastern swordsmen
Eastern light cav -- dismount as eastern swordsmen
Slingers (of course!)
Tower shield spearmen
Eastern archers

in short, not a particularly impressive selection. If they need more troop types, they need to conquer more provinces - camels available in Sinai and Aramaea, Lydian infantry from Ugarit and Asia Minor, Phrygian Cav from Edessa and Asia Minor, and Chaldean Skirmishers and battering rams from Assur. Beyond the homelands, only Israelite chariots will be available. Even so I have managed to wipe out the Assyrians and Egyptians, and eventually the Phoenicians with their ridiculously powerful teched up heavy guard cavalry (I will need to review Phoenician units
later ~D, it's still bit of a "placeholder" roster for them, the only dedicated unit being "Phoenician marines", a pretty potent spear phalanx.)

@Ignoramus: okay re the Edomites -- I don't know the first thing about them, to be honest, but I would hazard a guess at -- CAMELS ~D Sinai is currently just sitting there with a few rebel nubians trying to keep the Egyptians and Israelites apart, so it would be interesting to give it a faction. I also wonder if maybe in this period, the Aramaeans ought to be a faction, as they were largely responsible for pushing back the Assyrians (along with the Phrygians from the north), and had also taken over most of Syria. It would certainly make the mid-east mix a bit more explosive than having a bunch of idle rebels just waiting to be taken over.... hmmm... but there are so many options there - I haven't got room for Philistines, for instance.


I have the New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History

:yes: me too! Useful, isn't it?

That's all for now, have to get back to work :oops:

[axel]

gg mate ill be waithing on the update :2thumbsup:

[Ignoramus]

I reckon you could put the Aramaeans in Syria and Antioch, which would help divide Asia Minor from Palestine and Egypt. I also suggest considering putting the Moabites in Arabia. They inhabited the area east of the Jordan, and it would be a nice thing to have the Middle East completely full of factions.

The Edomites were the descendents of Esau, Jacob's brother. I don't really have any information about their army, but I can provide a hefty list of Edomite names.