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[turbohacker]

Having not played Rome Total War in at least... 18 months... i can see a lot has changed in this game... ie... mods etc...

Ok, just installed.

Im looking for a decent mod, dont mind which, just not too dificult.

Throw all mod suggestions my way, and tell me why you think they are good, i've had a brief look, but its boggling my head.

Cheers...

[Quirinus]

Right now I'd recommend Rome: Total Realism (RTR), but you've probably already played that, seeing as how it's an old mod. But there's a Platinum edition that ports it to the newest patch. Also, a mini-campaign of the next RTR, RTR VII, called The Iberian Conquest has just been released. I haven't tried that one out, but it looks good. I've also found the mod team very friendly and helpful.

If you haven't played RTR before, it's basically a realism mod, like its title suggests, with a bigger map, completely new units, a new faction (Bactria). Cavalry is also radically different-- they have very high charge values, but they will get massacred if you leave them to hand-to-hand combat. In other words, more realistic. It also employs Area-of-Recruitment (AoE), um, recruitment for low-level units. Meaning, for example, any faction can train a Gallic warband kind of unit in Gaul, Italian troops in Italy, etc.

Another mod that caught my eye is the relatively new Extended Greek Mod (XGM). It retains most of the vanilla game flavour, but with a bigger map and a focus on Greek factions-- they are no longer purely phalanx-based, so have more variety. The only issues I've heard of are random CTDs, but I don't think they occur very often.

If you're really really into historical immersiveness and a slow game, go for Europa Barbarorum (EB). It is supposed to be really realistic, with various army reforms and such, for example. The fully-revamped trait system also looks sexy. Though a common complaint for EB is that it has insanely long loading times, so if that puts you off, don't get it. Personally, though, it's another EB feature that bugs me the most-- all the unit names have in their "native" tongue, meaning unless you have a phD in classical studies or something, be prepared to be swamped by a whole lot of gibberish, especially the non-Roman and non-Greek factions.

I've also heard good things about SPQR: Total War and Roma Surrectum (RS). Just as the XGM elaborates on the Greek factions, the Roman faction gets an overhaul in these two mods. They feature 0-turn recruitment, and IIRC Roma Surrectum has named legions.


But these are only mods set in the rough timeframe of vanilla RTW. I'm not too sure about the rest, I only researched about these Roman-era mods. But there's a lot of variety too. There's a medieval mod, at least two Napoleonic/Renaissance mods, two LotR mods, an East Asian mod.......

Well, anyways. Welcome back, turbohacker!

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Moved to Mod Discussion

Hullo turbohacker

If you're looking for something a bit more minor, then you may wish to try out some of the more obscure mini-mods. These change little things in the game, such as fixing a bug, adding a few mercenaries and enhancing balance.

If you decide to patch up to to v1.5, then then this community fix "BugFixer" by player1 can easily resolve quite a few graphical and technical glitches included within it. It doesn't resolve any major bugs though - they are, sadly, hardcoded into the game's mechanics.

If you wish to see a more balanced game, then the Vannila Essential Pack can help. In R:TW certain factions always rule the map and gameplay is incredibly fast paced. This mod, requiring version 1.5, resolves some of these issues and helps all factions expand more equally. In addition to this, it adds extra mercenaries to regions.

The Vanilla Balancing Mod also has similar aims to the Vanilla Essentials Pack. There are versions for R:TW, BI and the Alexander mini expansion pack. You can get that here.

Both of the above contain the fixes contained in player1's BugFixer.

R:TW comes with an inconvenient faction unlocking system as well as having certain factions disabled. However, this can be negated through careful modification of a certain gaming file. If you choose to add no mods yet, then this is an essential change:

To play as all factions, simply enter "C:/Program Files/Activision/Rome - Total War/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign" (should you have the standard version, not Gold) or "C:/Program Files/Activision/Rome - Total War/data/world/maps/campaign/imperial_campaign" (should you have the Gold edition).

Simply select the file name "descr_strat.txt" (or simply "descr_strat" if file extensions are hidden).

The file will currently look like this:

All you have to do is change it to (the spaces at the front are used using the tab keys):

Now you can open up R:TW and play as any faction that was previously non-playable.

[turbohacker]

jeez... all that seems confusing...

can u install two mods at same time? or will that cause a conflict?

basically... quite realistic, but still fun, and a bigger campaign map would be great =D

[Aradan]

You can install as many fully modfoldered mods you want at the same time, partially modfoldered mods will probably conflict with each other and non-modfoldered mods can be used only 1 at a time per RTW installation.

For a list of mods check out: http://www.twcenter.net/wiki/Released_Mods

[turbohacker]

is it possible to change stats so some units are 0-turn recruitment? =)

[Aradan]

Yes, open data/export_descr_units.txt, go to the stat_cost line of the unit you want and change the first value to 0.

Btw, modding questions should go in the relevant forum, where you are also most likely to find answers to similar or identical questions other people had before. ;)

[Cruelsader]

Great replies Quirinus and Omanes Alexandrapolites, thanks! (I am not the original poster. I was just reading the subforum for mod info.)