BI Demo Comments

More to that.

I'd estimate the distance raced to be about 1/3 the distance of the total battlefield length (assuming that the Hun line is set up at approx the centerpoint). What was noticable was that the difference in speed between the cav units was not visably noticable until about half the raced distance had passed. Therefore, over short distances (1/6 total battlefield) the differences in speed will be negligible and I would suggest that the speed differences at combat distances are moot (which agrees with your observation). If CA wants to have speed differences between cav types (and they should) the speed differences need to be more exaggerated (unless there is also a 'time to react' factor which could also be used to give light cav a speed advantage).

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Originally Posted by SpencerH

I did a quick and dirty test in Chalons. I simply lined up three units in extended lines then I double clicked an equidistant point for each unit to race to. Fresh Hunnic archers were definitely faster than Hunnic Heavy cav and Hunnic elite cav (the last two were the same speed)

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TRUE,
but,
saxon heavy cav can catch goth horse archers, even if the HA's are on skirmish mode

goth HA's cannot catch saxon heavies

the hunnic cav are the fastest of the lot


put any HA on cantabrian circle and they are dog food if you dont watch em,
they seem to forget to skirmish in time to avoid charging cav, especially if you charge the cav past them.


it is currently impossible to put Goth HA's and Saxon heavies in the same army for a proper test
:(

B.

One thing I noticed is that unit coherence seems more flexible. I´ve seen a unit of Frankish spearmen spread out and building two bulks. In RTW 1.2 it could happen that a unit got "pulled back" because one or two men were engaged with an enemy unit. That seems to be less now.
Also, some unit animations seem more detailed now.

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Originally Posted by barocca

TRUE,
but,
saxon heavy cav can catch goth horse archers, even if the HA's are on skirmish mode

goth HA's cannot catch saxon heavies

the hunnic cav are the fastest of the lotB.

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Perhaps Goth HA are considered heavy (as are the Hunnic elite despite being HA) and saxon 'heavy' is calc'd as medium speed.

From a realistic perspective one would expect that a charging heavy cav unit might occasionally catch HA that didnt react quickly enough. After all it takes a fair bit of time to turn a horse 180 degrees and ride away. OTOH, from a historical perspective, it should be a rare event.

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Originally Posted by barocca

put any HA on cantabrian circle and they are dog food if you dont watch em,
they seem to forget to skirmish in time to avoid charging cav, especially if you charge the cav past them.

B.

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Why would anyone use cantabrian circle? IIRC it never worked correctly and any units using it were always 'easy pickings'.

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Originally Posted by Celtibero Mordred

You can download it from here:

MCM-v0.11 English

Enjoy

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Thanks for the link.

I have installed it just now, but I couldn't get it to work. The game said there was an error loading the mount database. I did install it twice in different folders (I wanted to see which files where affected) but the problem remained after I uninstalled both, did a registry clean up and reinstalled the mod. Normal R:TW still works.

Do you know someone who can help me with this?

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Originally Posted by Ludens

I did install it twice in different folders (I wanted to see which files where affected) but the problem remained after I uninstalled both, did a registry clean up and reinstalled the mod. Normal R:TW still works.

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All the files go into a MPComMod folder under the main game folder, and the new shortcut points to that folder. I installed v0.11 andit works for me. Make sure you aren't installing it into a modded version of RTW.

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Originally Posted by SpencerH

Why would anyone use cantabrian circle? IIRC it never worked correctly and any units using it were always 'easy pickings'.

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It was very useful for dealing with the elite missile units. You could slowly attrit them while keeping them engaged without them cutting you to pieces in the process. They had to send another unit or two out to deal with the threat. Where it didn't work was versus fast charging units that could melee.

well the cantabrian circle was pretty usefull in RTW for Hores archer v other archers!

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Originally Posted by SpencerH

Why would anyone use cantabrian circle? IIRC it never worked correctly and any units using it were always 'easy pickings'.

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eh?, because this is BI not Rome
bugs are supposed to have been fixed

we are doing what testing we can on the demo while the devs still have time to tweak the code

testing means trying to find the limits and testing as many features as you can,

BI Demo Bug Thread

BKB and Myself are making new battles for just that purpose,
well, that And to have a bit of fun too.
B.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

It was very useful for dealing with the elite missile units. You could slowly attrit them while keeping them engaged without them cutting you to pieces in the process. They had to send another unit or two out to deal with the threat. Where it didn't work was versus fast charging units that could melee.

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Hmmm? Perhaps I never tried that since I dont think I actually play a campaign where I had that many HA. I just recall the mounted javelin-based cantabrian circle as being a bit of a jerk (so to speak).

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Originally Posted by barocca

eh?, because this is BI not Rome
bugs are supposed to have been fixed

we are doing what testing we can on the demo while the devs still have time to tweak the code

testing means trying to find the limits and testing as many features as you can,

BI Demo Bug Thread

BKB and Myself are making new battles for just that purpose,
well, that And to have a bit of fun too.
B.

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Thats why I started this thread too. Its just that I was never that impressed with the idea of the CC anyway.

EDIT: I tested the hun CC in Chalons and at least 2 of the 4 that I set 'a twirling' were caught by cav (including heavy cav). I saw one where the circle essentially stayed in place while light cav charged into them. Useless.

I just played the Frankish ambush and it was interesting as well as graphically brilliant. Since I didnt care about winning and losing I was able to zoom in and it seemed to me that the graphics were much more realistic looking than in RTW. There appeared to be much more fluid variation in how individuals were moving while in contact with the enemy. I was amazed at how appropriate some of the actions were.

I was somewhat disappointed with Badon Hill which seemed much less dark than this mod. If this is the way it goes in BI, night battles will be something of a challenge. With no terrain to view and less knowledge of what I was facing I had to completely change my tactics!

How powerful is your PC, Spencer? :book:

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

How powerful is your PC, Spencer? :book:

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Nothing special, a 2.8 GHz P4, ATI 9700. Why?

Ive played the demo and my initial impression is that im not impressed the whole selling point for them is the glowing colours from the onanger's etc. Its not really that good or realistic but for me its something that is not mportant. but it appears to be their big selling point this worries me.

The most important part is the-

Mending of the multiplayer so as that everyone can actually play it online,

the AI not being retarded,

other units looking as well in detail as the roman counterparts,-not addressed

the correct balancing of the armies so that 1 urban cohort cannot hold out against ridiculous, unrealistic odds against barb infantry or vice versa.

more detailed realistic morale -seems they have done something. will it match MTW? ~:)

the voices on the non roman factions are absolutely awful, terrible, sounds like a squeeky kid that was paid 5 quid, people should know to which i refer.

I see here quit few SP issues. We are aware that SP was even in RTW much better then MP for example 75%.

I know market philosophy, but all I'm asking is what I've already posted and mention. (related on CA)

Few of us who have all TW series at home is mainly becaus MP reason. We also posted few posts with few issues to be address.

Despite that history has repeated intself quit few times, I'm being optimistic once more - for BI.

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Originally Posted by VorCid

I see here quit few SP issues. We are aware that SP was even in RTW much better then MP for example 75%.

I know market philosophy, but all I'm asking is what I've already posted and mention. (related on CA)

Few of us who have all TW series at home is mainly becaus MP reason. We also posted few posts with few issues to be address.

Despite that history has repeated intself quit few times, I'm being optimistic once more - for BI.

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Have you played the demo? If so, what did you think? If not...............

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

All the files go into a MPComMod folder under the main game folder, and the new shortcut points to that folder. I installed v0.11 andit works for me. Make sure you aren't installing it into a modded version of RTW.

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Thanks, I got it to work by installing in a 'clean' R:TW folder. Though I don't understand why he refused to work in the other folder: the only differences were a few edited text files and two new maps to store the original data.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

Thanks, I got it to work by installing in a 'clean' R:TW folder. Though I don't understand why he refused to work in the other folder: the only differences were a few edited text files and two new maps to store the original data.

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Because that would force players who want to continue playing vanilla to expend another 2 Gb to install a Mod. With MCM, people can play both, vanilla and modded version using the same rome installation.

IMO, all modders should make their mods in a separated folder, so everybody could play several mods installed over the same vanilla RTW. BI have been made so too.

*bows*

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Originally Posted by Ludens

Thanks for the link.

I have installed it just now, but I couldn't get it to work. The game said there was an error loading the mount database. I did install it twice in different folders (I wanted to see which files where affected) but the problem remained after I uninstalled both, did a registry clean up and reinstalled the mod. Normal R:TW still works.

Do you know someone who can help me with this?

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That's because your RTW is not "clean" : it contains the player1 bugfixer. If player1 would have made its bugfixer in a separated folder that would not happen ~D.

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Originally Posted by Celtibero Mordred

That's because your RTW is not "clean" : it contains the player1 bugfixer. If player1 would have made its bugfixer in a separated folder that would not happen ~D.

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Ah, but then it wouldn't be a bug-fixer. It would be a mod ~D .

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Originally Posted by Ludens

Ah, but then it wouldn't be a bug-fixer. It would be a mod ~D .

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It's a mod called "bug-fixer" indeed ~:cheers:

I don't know what to say about some of the points raised in this thread....
Maybe I'll just comment on the cantabrian circle issue. It seems obvious to me that this feature can leave that particular unit in a vulnerable state. This is not a command to be issued and forgotten about because light cav especially are going to get amongst them and do a lot of damage. I played the Chalons battle many times and in different ways. I used the Hun elite and HA with and without cantabrian circle. There is no way that those units are going to change formation and skirmish away out of trouble all by themselves so you must not 'forget' about them. Used wisely, I think cantabrian circle makes them more efficient

.....Orda

Excellent posts in this thread, one and all. Thanks very much for the analysis and insight. :bow:

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Originally Posted by Celtibero Mordred

It's a mod called "bug-fixer" indeed ~:cheers:

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There is a reason why I added original data folder in install, as well as integration section in the readme.

Also seperate folder idea doesn't really work, since while with -mod parameter some files could be read from seperate folder is does not work for all essential files. Also, custom battles can't be started that way.

from readme:

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Integration Guide

This guide is for users that want to mix and match different mods. It shows which bug-fixer files require other bug-fixer files to work properly.

descr_model_battle.txt requires:
-greek_archer_merc_sprite_new.spr
-greek_archer_merc_sprite_new_000.tga.dds

descr_mount.txt requires:
-descr_model_battle.txt

export_descr_unit.txt requires:
-descr_mount.txt
-descr_model_battle.txt

export_descr_ancillaries.txt requires:
-export_descr_character_traits.txt

So, if you use bug-fixer export_descr_unit.txt file, you also need to use bug-fixer descr_mount.txt and descr_model_battle.txt files to make things work properly.

On the other hand, if you plan to use export_descr_unit.txt file from some other mod, it won't have negative impact on other parts of bug-fixer, since no other part of bug-fixer requires export_descr_unit.txt file.

In some cases, when applying other mods, you need to use some of original files instead of those from bug-fixer. For example, if you want to use some mod that modifies export_descr_character_traits.txt file, you can't use it together with bug-fixer export_descr_ancillaries.txt file, since it requires bug-fixer version of export_descr_character_traits.txt file. In such case, you need to use original export_descr_ancillaries.txt file instead of one from bug-fixer (can be found in Original Data folder).

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I just DL'ed and played through the demo then...

All I can say is U G L Y units! OMG they were hideous.

The Franks particularly! Thank God for RTR!

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Originally Posted by Lonely Soldier

All I can say is U G L Y units! OMG they were hideous.

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I am almost certain that the colours are not historically accurate in some cases.

It is my understanding that purple colouring could only be gathered from a particular type of shellfish in those days, and that the process of making purple dye was both labour intensive and VERY expensive. In brief, there is no way that an entire Roman battlegroup could be outfitted in purple regalia. Hence, purple was known as a "royal colour" because only nobility, or the very rich, could afford a touch of purple on their garments.

Maybe Orda Khan or one of the other historians could confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that such was the case back then.

The colors bother me too. There are too many primary "digital paintbox" colors. It's a Crayola version of the ancient world. I don't know enough about the history of dyes to be certain, but it seems to me that the range of colors for clothing, shield paint, etc. would have been at least somewhat limited, and probably further away from the pure primaries we take for granted today.

BI (and RTW too) has the look of the early Technicolor movie epics, where all the colors were bright, bright, bright. More modern historical movies tend to use a dulled-down palette, which (historical or not) I think looks better. There is also more (simulated) dirt and dust on everything in most modern historical movies. That's another thing lacking in the look of RTW/BI. All the soldiers are just way too clean... like they put on freshly laundered uniforms for drill inspection in a training barracks, instead of wearing the same thing after a months-long march through enemy territory. Dulling down the palette would help kill that "freshly laundered" look.

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Originally Posted by player1

Also seperate folder idea doesn't really work, since while with -mod parameter some files could be read from seperate folder is does not work for all essential files. Also, custom battles can't be started that way.

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That's not true. Check my mod and see: separate folder works and custom battles can be started that way. ~;)

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I am almost certain that the colours are not historically accurate in some cases.

It is my understanding that purple colouring could only be gathered from a particular type of shellfish in those days, and that the process of making purple dye was both labour intensive and VERY expensive. In brief, there is no way that an entire Roman battlegroup could be outfitted in purple regalia. Hence, purple was known as a "royal colour" because only nobility, or the very rich, could afford a touch of purple on their garments.

Maybe Orda Khan or one of the other historians could confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that such was the case back then.

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The colour Purple was indeed regarded as the colour of nobility and I must add that I am honoured to be mentioned by one of our very own 'royal' members ( as in April 1999 ) It is so good to see the original members such as yourself, Kurando, still posting at the Org :bow:

.......Orda

P.S. I doubt whether each soldier would look exactly alike either, there is only so much that can be achieved by a game and colour coordination in order to identify your army is ok by me

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Originally Posted by Celtibero Mordred

That's not true. Check my mod and see: separate folder works and custom battles can be started that way. ~;)

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Correction: It does not work for all mods...

For example, when I tried to make all faction mod as seperate.

I hope CA will improve this function in the future.

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Originally Posted by Orda Khan

The colour Purple was indeed regarded as the colour of nobility and I must add that I am honoured to be mentioned by one of our very own 'royal' members ( as in April 1999 ) It is so good to see the original members such as yourself, Kurando, still posting at the Org :bow:

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You flatter me with your complements, Mongol + the fact that I am still around after this long is due to two reasons:

1) That Tosa and company have kept the site going, and that the quality of the org patrons and moderators is always top notch.

2) That the Total War series itself is such a superb group of games. I think that BI is just another progression in this series and it keeps getting better. S:TW delivered the goods and R:TW was unquestionably a masterpiece.

..

As per the colours I'd have to agree: the main thing is establishing identity on the battlefield + historical accuracy is a distant concern. I recall that the original Shogun totalwar movies featured units that were so colourful that we nic named them "smurf armies" so Richie and the dev team toned them down a bit. I think the trend back towards more colour in the battle groups is clearly evident in BI, and this is a mixed blessing.

As per Lonely Soldier's contention that the units are ugly, I'd have to agree and say that too is a mixed blessing; nonetheless I'd be more worried if the Barbarians were pretty... Heck, the are barbarians after all! ~;)

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Originally Posted by player1

Correction: It does not work for all mods...

For example, when I tried to make all faction mod as seperate.

I hope CA will improve this function in the future.

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That's very simple: you can make all factions available simply putting your modified file in mymod\world\maps\campaign\imperial campaign\descr_strat.txt and then adding -mod:mymod to the shortcut route ~:confused:

Please, take a look at my mod just to see the structure. The only problem I've found so far is with skeletons files.

CA added this feature in 1.2 patch, but it seems that modders are not using it. I don't know why, maybe they don't know how to do it works properly, but I did it and it's really easy.

Trust me, I experimented with -mod a lot.

In this case, you would also need to manualy move all pics from same folder to mod folder, since otherwise it would behaive like pics are not there.

Plus custom battles would not work (in this case).


But, what really killed this featue for me is that txt file for text folders are always read from original game, which really limits the use of this function.

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Originally Posted by player1

Trust me, I experimented with -mod a lot.

In this case, you would also need to manualy move all pics from same folder to mod folder, since otherwise it would behaive like pics are not there.

Plus custom battles would not work (in this case).


But, what really killed this featue for me is that txt file for text folders are always read from original game, which really limits the use of this function.

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I can't trust you because I already got it. You are just telling me that I cannot achieve what I already achieved. And the fact is that I didn't have to move any pic from data folder to mod folder. If you didn't get it, it doesn't mean that others cannot do it.

My mod uses the -mod feature and I have included new units and skins, as well as several stuff I considered good for it. And Custom battles work, even multiplayer games. Other mods can't say the same.

The only thing that is right is that .txt files for text folders are always read from original game, what annoys me too.

PD: maybe we should continue this discussion by pm's ;)

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Originally Posted by player1

Correction: It does not work for all mods...

For example, when I tried to make all faction mod as seperate.

I hope CA will improve this function in the future.

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I have tried and test a few mods. Most modders are not aware of the -mod function, or just too plain lazy to implement it well.

And that's too bad, because the function does work well... and if modders were really willing to do it, everyone would be able to run multiple mods + vanilla on one install.

That also reminds me that the link in your sig is not using that functionality. Consequence; you can't play MP with it, and it screw up other mods that are using properly the -mod function.

Louis,

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Please, take a look at my mod just to see the structure. The only problem I've found so far is with skeletons files.

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isn't that exactly what most of the major mods change ? next to the estethic part of new animations, RTW has very few different speeds between lightly armoured and heavily armoured units.

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Originally Posted by [cF]Adherbal

isn't that exactly what most of the major mods change ? next to the estethic part of new animations, RTW has very few different speeds between lightly armoured and heavily armoured units.

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Three speeds for infantry and three for cav would have been better, but you can make do with two for each to maintain compatibility. Mordred's mod is the only one I know of that tried to maintain compatibility, and that's critical in getting a mod used online. The gameplay certainly hasn't suffered because Mordred's mod provides battle gameplay which is better than any other RTW mod I've tried, and the campaign is improved as well.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

Three speeds for infantry and three for cav would have been better, but you can make do with two for each to maintain compatibility. Mordred's mod is the only one I know of that tried to maintain compatibility, and that's critical in getting a mod used online. The gameplay certainly hasn't suffered because Mordred's mod provides battle gameplay which is better than any other RTW mod I've tried, and the campaign is improved as well.

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Do you have a quick (i.e. one that wont take you too long to get) link to that mod?

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Originally Posted by SpencerH

Do you have a quick (i.e. one that wont take you too long to get) link to that mod?

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You can download it from here:

MCM-v0.11 English

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Originally Posted by Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe

I have tried and test a few mods. Most modders are not aware of the -mod function, or just too plain lazy to implement it well.

And that's too bad, because the function does work well... and if modders were really willing to do it, everyone would be able to run multiple mods + vanilla on one install.

That also reminds me that the link in your sig is not using that functionality. Consequence; you can't play MP with it, and it screw up other mods that are using properly the -mod function.

Louis,

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Ok, then put bugfixer in seperate folder, use -mod function, and please try to start imperial campaign or custom battle.

If you succeed, then please tell me how you did it, and what I missed.

My experience is that for this to work, is that I need to feed that folder with copies of buch of original unmofidied files too, to get it to work (especially imperial_campaign folder).

And even then, since text folder still need to be original, then what is really the point. It would still screw some mod then mods txt files...


P.S.
CA did said that -mod function is incomplete, and it doesn't work for all files, and that it will be improved in expansion.

I do expect moding revolution then, and extensive use of -mod too.

By the way, I think MCM users could easily make it bug-fixer "compatilbe", if they copy original files that MCM doesn't modify to MCM folder. That way they would use original values instead of bug-fixer ones.


EDIT:
My hunch says that by just puting original descr_mount.txt to your MCM folder, will make it work over MCM (while keeping bug-fixer for SP game).

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Originally Posted by player1

By the way, I think MCM users could easily make it bug-fixer "compatilbe", if they copy original files that MCM doesn't modify to MCM folder. That way they would use original values instead of bug-fixer ones.


EDIT:
My hunch says that by just puting original descr_mount.txt to your MCM folder, will make it work over MCM (while keeping bug-fixer for SP game).

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But that would make MCM non compatible with multiplayer. MCM needs a clean vanilla installation and not to manipulate its own files to work in multiplayer games.

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Originally Posted by player1

Ok, then put bugfixer in seperate folder, use -mod function, and please try to start imperial campaign or custom battle.

If you succeed, then please tell me how you did it, and what I missed.

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I've been watching your bugfixer and if you want how to make it using -mod, you have to put the original descr_strat file in your mymod folder. In addition, you will have to put text, UI and sprites folders in Data and not in mymod folder. As you didn't add new models nor textures, you don't have to redirectionate entries from descr_model_battle.txt.

As I said, just take a look at my mod to learn how to.

If you have any question about how to mod using this feature, please pm me because this is off topic, this thread is to talk about BI demo.

Yes, I just realised, after some experimentation, that descr_strat is requred to be able to start either campaign or custom battles.

Probably the reason why my earlier experiments failed.

Although, as I noticed earlier, I still need to manaully place TGAs from original imperial_campaign folder to mymod version, in order to show map on faction selection screen properly.


This still leaves question of text folder, probably why I won't use this structure (until BI).


Anyway, as far as I'm aware in order to use original MP with bugfixer installed, all it is necessary is to use original export_descr_units.txt file (supplied with bugfixer backup folder). It was enough to not show warning when loading original game replays.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

You can download it from here:

MCM-v0.11 English

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Thanks

Since this thread has shifted toward a mod discussion I have to wonder whether anyone is still playing the demo?

sorry...


BI demo has great looking barbarian captain skins.
You know the brown guy with brown shield.

Maybe it's because he does not suffer from faction color overuse?

I really dont mind about the mod discussion. As far as I'm concerned, with all the excellent work you've done for RTW you can discuss what you want where you want.

I honestly just wonder whether the lack of posts over the last few days indicates a real lack of enthusiasm for the demo. On the other hand, I only played the RTW demo once, so who knows.