Mod or not?

Poll discussing various mods. I made it multiple choice as a lot of people may be happy with any mod. Judging from the other polls it seems M2 (without Kingdoms) is the most popular base game but I'll include a few from those anyway.

edit: of course others can be proposed in this thread if there are any more suggestions.

EB:2

links:
Stainless Steel 4.1:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=110425
Broken Crescent:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=346
Roma Surrectum:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=251
Stainless Steel 6.0:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=146099
Europa Barbarorum:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=31
FH's mod:https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=250

Wait, vanilla Rome is on there and EB isn't? I don't even own the game and I think that's a travesty (Or is there something I'm missing?).

edit: Voted and EB +1

:egypt:

oops, I knew there were some missed off, post your vote for it then and I'll tally them.

EB:1

In addition, I'm voting for EB.

I'll keep the tally for extra additions in the first post then.

I'm surprised a Kingdoms mod is the clear favorite. Out of curiosity, why is it that so many people chose SS 6.0 and not SS 4.0?

because there are massive improvments in all areas of the game.

SS 6.0 has a bigger map, extra factions, reskins for captains, generals and faction leaders, includes reskins for major factions and has the max amount of units and settlements

not to mention the AI balancing, but since its not released I'd have to say it has to be that mysterious allure that everyone loves


so yea, basically what EF said :P

Broken Crescent is my favorite, but I also voted for SS 6.0. That mod has a fairly large, strong team who appear to be dedicated to taking advantage of every known modding trick out there to polish up the game. If I end up getting Kingdoms, I'll definitely be giving it a try, and I think it could make for some fun MP action.

:egypt:

I picked SS 4

I would prefer SS 6 personally but I thought picking the Kingdoms mod would exclude people since not everyone wants Kingdoms.

So, if we decide on a M2TW mod, I vote 4. If we move to Kingdoms, I vote 6.

If it's RTW, I don't know enough about those mods so I'll go with whatever. :beam:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 00jebus

SS 6.0 has a bigger map, extra factions, reskins for captains, generals and faction leaders, includes reskins for major factions and has the max amount of units and settlements

not to mention the AI balancing, but since its not released I'd have to say it has to be that mysterious allure that everyone loves


so yea, basically what EF said :P

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Indeed, but my point was the two of you appear to be saying that if we use a Kingdoms mod you want SS 6.0, but if we use a mod for Vanilla MII:TW you do not want SS 4.0. Is this true, and are these your reasons?

Myself, I voted for both. They are not in direct competition with each other, so the issue of which one to use would be the same as deciding whether or not to use kingdoms.

I did not vote for 4.0 as if we played on M2 without Kingdoms then I'd rather play BC. Just as I would play RS if we played RTW.

Not having Kingdoms I would have to go with SS4.1 or at least something that FH has modded.

I said vanilla or FH's mod. Not to rain on your parades, though.

so far it looks as if BC is the favourite, I know 6.0 has more votes but 5 people said they wouldn't play if we did Kngdoms or said that they'd rather it was M2. It looks close though...

I know it might be a little tedious, but, can someone explain to me what the main aspects are of these mods?

I have no idea what to vote for because I simply don't know.

I told my mom Stainless Steel 4.1 was 300 mb and she said size isn't the issue, it's the fact that if her computer breaks there's no one to get mad at. lol

Essentially we have:

SS4.1 is a non-Kingdoms improvement over vanilla MTW2. Same basic area, with some expansion of the larger map. The campaign has titles that can be assigned and traded, some AI buffs, and is generally slower but mostly the same as Vanilla

Broken Crescent is compatible with all current versions (MTW2 1.2/1.3 and Kingdoms). It's a complete reset of the map, removing Europe and recentering on the area between the Kiev-Constantinople-Aswan line all the way east to India. Very few of the regions and none of the units are carried over from vanilla. There are some titles, but they're handled a little differently from SS. Population growth is much, much slower so sacking a town or castle is a really brutal act, the same is true of religious conversion. It's difficult and priests are quite rare. Also nations have limited 'Area of Recruitment' zones within which their professional soldiers are available. Did it ever make sense to take Gaza as England and starting training hordes of longbowmen the next year? No. In BC you can't do that.

FH's mod essentially leaves the core of vanilla intact, but improves most of the aspects that CA left half finished. KotRfix but with more features and more polish.

Rome and it's mods someone else will have to comment on.

SS6.0 is not yet out, but supposed to be coming soon. It's a further expansion on the same themes as SS4.1, but with every new or added feature that the Kingdoms expansion has made possible, including more factions, more unit variety, and a larger map. There is a lot of hype around the mod, and reading even a little about it makes it hard not to be excited, but it requires Kingdoms. I expect that from this point on almost all new mods will require Kingdoms.

Does that help? I'm quite familiar with Broken Crescent if you have any questions about it, but I ditched SS4.1 a long time ago so someone else might be better informed there.

:egypt:

Thanks Ramses.

At this stage I'd be leaning towards BC or FH's mod.

I'm not even sure I can buy Kingdoms in Switzerland now.

Ill put links in the first popst that lead to the forums of the mods, it should make it easier to get a feel for them and see some screenies.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elite Ferret

Ill put links in the first popst that lead to the forums of the mods, it should make it easier to get a feel for them and see some screenies.

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Thanks EF, that would be great.

My link is missing in post 1, but its easy to find in my sig :yes:

yeah sorry I couldn't find it :(

I'll put it in now.

We should play as the ERE in BC, I didn't play in KotR though so my opinion might not mean so much.

ERE in BC

pro's: keeps roman theme of these games (doesn't really matter I guess), BC provides very nice units for battle reports, some titles avaliable for roleplaying

con's: edge of map means limited arguments over who gets armies/funds, army is alot like HRE in vanilla (good spearmen and heavy cav. but lacks horse archers and high quality foot archers), far away from the monguls so whoever hosts will probably end up giving the AI alot of bonus'

Unless there is some serious dissent with my conclusions in the other two polls, I think we should conclude that vanilla M2TW will be the next game engine. It might be a good idea to make another mod poll that lists only mods for vanilla M2TW. I would love SS 6.0, but not much point in voting for it if we're not running Kingdoms.

The poll here was a multiple choice poll, so people could select several options (both M2TW and Kingdoms)

still I think it would be best to put up another, I'd actually like to add a vote to SS4.1 now that it is certain we will use M2.

I second that motion.

I'd be fine with sticking with vanilla. But if enough people want SS 4, I'd be fine with that too.

It might be useful to have some people give us their opinions on why the various mods would be good for our next game. I've only ever played SS 4.1 and Ultimate AI. I have no experience with BC or any other mod, so it would be helpful if people could explain why they think we should pick a particular mod over any other.

I'll start:

Ultimate AI: Much harder than vanilla TW. Probably the hardest mod out there, which is a good thing. However, it achieves this by putting massive restrictions on recruitment and unit variety. This would make a KOTR-style game very boring, and thus I do not recommend UAI for our game.

SS 4.1: Increased map size and fabulous trait/retinue system, including retinue 'titles' for the owners of each province, allowing us to represent our OOC province ownership in-game. SS 4.1 would really make role-playing fun, and the supply and morale system created via the traits would also increase realism and difficulty, making things like the Moscow Crusade nearly impossible. At the same time, there is no AI mod bundled with it, so we would probably have to lay one on top to make sure we got the most out of the game, which increases the installation complexity.

I should note that VanillaMod (my mod) has elements of UAI in it. However, those are limited to battle AI only and not recruitment and other behavior.

my only problem with FH's mod is the fact that it is on the vanilla map (unless I'm wrong there) which I am totally fed up with tbh.

Despite the way I voted I think SS would far better suit a KotR style game than BC due to the titles for every settlement and the supplies (though in single player I find that annoying...)

Maybe someone should create anpother poll, I fluffed up this one by putting mods for different games on which may have changed people's votes (as it did mine)