Suggestion and Feature Request

[parthian shot]

Thank you for your encouragement! And welcome to TWorg.

Just so happened that two of the team mates (myself included) are involved in the archaeology and anthropology, so we do have a list of problems using the current game infrastructure for 450BC.

The current mods are based on the theses I have developed, and they are based on digging and developmental information from these digging in Russia, China, Mediterranean, Central Asia. But since I am not an expert of Masandarani, I am not aware that is the translation of the region. Traditionally, it was held that Masandaran means "valley demarcated by mountains", some would state more specifically that Masandaran means "Land of the mountain Mawz". So if you can provide your source, that would be very helpful. Of course, I ran into the Red Sonja comic character when I did research for this mod, and the character is supposedly from Hyrcania, the larger geographical area that includes the Masandarani territory. So you are not alone in thinking she-devil is from that region.

The interesting part is that Masandaran is rather famous for its axes and lumber business, the entire district within Masandaran was named Tabaristan, or land of lumber jacks. And Amazons do favor axes more than sword.

The part where the Amazon and Masandaran did not quite match is the lack of equestrian activities in that region, like the whitepaper I wrote and recorded first in rtw.gameheaven and later in TWC (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forum...azon-Total-War), Greeks were impressed with the Amazons because the Amazons are all equestrians, and their names, whether these are nom de guerre or not, are mostly associated with horses. To a patriarchal infantry based military, a matriarchal cavalry with mobility and stand-off capability must be shocking and left a lasting impression. As one of my theses stated since the ancient horses are mostly 12 hands high, most men can not ride such war mount, which are really glorified ponies, and made the force as mobile and agile as women can.

I do agree that Greek, being often incorporating other culture's themes without naming sources, would add the Minoan goddess culture as part of their own collection of legends. So Gorgon is quite easily an adaptation of the Minoan Goddess Cults.

Please help us by provide us rating on ModDB, we are under attack by pirates who once tried to hijack our mod, and also by Muslim group who dislike the mod.

[-Nietzsche-]

Nice to read that you really know what you are talking about :-)
Muslims? So sad, the Zoroarstrism wasn't that succesful. We would have a lot less Problems, I think. I'll have a look at ModDB the next days. How can someone hijack a mod everybody already knows that it is yours? Well, jealousy is the most honest form of admiration ;-)
To Mazandaran:
I've had a chat with some Iranians about the Mazandaran-Article in National Geographic some time ago. I just repeated what they told me, so it ain't rock hard evidence. They also told me that "Hamazan" does only mean "Woman" in Iranian Language (as far as I remember) - not "Female Warrior" or something like that.
Generally, greek writings are a nice source, but I do have my problems with them, though...
The earliest Time most of the Sagas & Legends were written down was somewere around 600 or 500 b.c. - a time, all these Amazons were long gone. And, to be frank, the findings in Russia from that period are just the sad, few Remains of a once glorious Civilisation. So, within the greek writings one can find a lot of details that are, let's say, not overly historically correct. Best example is the "Cutting-off-one-breast-Thesis": The Greeks (and ONLY the Greeks) had a ridiculous way to shoot a bow. They pulled the String to the middle of their chest. A woman can't do that - so they thought, they had to cut off one Breast for shooting a bow. This technique is complete rubbish, let that be told to you by someone with years of Historical-Bow-Shooting-Experience ;-)
Another thing is, that most people think that bow-shooting wasn't that effective unless you've got a giant heap of archers on the field. If you are interested, look out for "Lars Andersen" and "Fast Archery" in youtube. You really won't belive what you see - but it's real

P.S.:
Do you know if someone is digging around in Poliochni right now?
Most people say that it was a matriachial Society, also - but noone said, why they think so...

[parthian shot]

Nice to read that you really know what you are talking about :-)
Muslims? So sad, the Zoroarstrism wasn't that succesful. We would have a lot less Problems, I think. I'll have a look at ModDB the next days. How can someone hijack a mod everybody already knows that it is yours? Well, jealousy is the most honest form of admiration ;-)
To Mazandaran:
I've had a chat with some Iranians about the Mazandaran-Article in National Geographic some time ago. I just repeated what they told me, so it ain't rock hard evidence. They also told me that "Hamazan" does only mean "Woman" in Iranian Language (as far as I remember) - not "Female Warrior" or something like that.
Generally, greek writings are a nice source, but I do have my problems with them, though...
The earliest Time most of the Sagas & Legends were written down was somewere around 600 or 500 b.c. - a time, all these Amazons were long gone. And, to be frank, the findings in Russia from that period are just the sad, few Remains of a once glorious Civilisation. So, within the greek writings one can find a lot of details that are, let's say, not overly historically correct. Best example is the "Cutting-off-one-breast-Thesis": The Greeks (and ONLY the Greeks) had a ridiculous way to shoot a bow. They pulled the String to the middle of their chest. A woman can't do that - so they thought, they had to cut off one Breast for shooting a bow. This technique is complete rubbish, let that be told to you by someone with years of Historical-Bow-Shooting-Experience ;-)
Another thing is, that most people think that bow-shooting wasn't that effective unless you've got a giant heap of archers on the field. If you are interested, look out for "Lars Andersen" and "Fast Archery" in youtube. You really won't belive what you see - but it's real

P.S.:
Do you know if someone is digging around in Poliochni right now?
Most people say that it was a matriachial Society, also - but noone said, why they think so...

Poliochni? I was on the Island of Lemnos back in 2006, the hypothesis is that the society is so egalitarian, and the warrior's stature so petite, including equipment used are for people with slim wrist, it got to be a matriarchal society.

[Balgeron]

Hello

I posted at the download in Moddb of new version, if you will be making Barbarian Invasion Campaign - i actually thought you are already set for it, and its gonna happen. But i now see it was just suggestions here.

I also read that you would try it, but it seems like its in the original game - with Parthia , Armens, Carthage ? What about Barbarian Invasion campaign? (is the BI campaign using the same template just with some new things? that factions are also replacements, like Burgundians or Saramatians instead of Averns and Scythians?)

If i may put out some brainstorming - hopefully it will help.

First of all, the campaign even though it would be alternate timeline, due to Amazon involvement during Rise of the Empire time - i think that it should still focused a lot on religions and nation migration like the BI campaign did.

So the Amazons should have all Camilla religion (i think this cult is pretty much strongest across all of the factions) as opposition to Christiansy and Paganism (Thus it could take Zorastriam place? Or maybe a new type of religion, if such thing is possible to make instead of replacement)

However not all of the Amazons should follow it as well - we should definitely have at least one Pagan Amazons and maybe even Christian one.

So one of the scenarios could be (i don't write all of the factions, as there are many minor ones like Burgundians, Roxolany, Visigoths, etc... that can be replaced for something new)-

*Civilized Factions(Cannot HORDE)*

Rome still expands, screw the Gauls, but Caesar still gets owned and all the chance of expanding to the north east dies with him. Rome conquers pretty much the same thing like in actual history, but with different enemies. It eventually turns to Christianism and split up on eastern and western part.

Here could come some changes - Eastern Empire could be change into Amazon like faction or mixed one(after absorbing Thermodan Amazons/maybe even Lybian amazons). With Empress instead of Emperor. They would still be Orthodox christiansy(in BI, they had some other faiths as well - greek/egypt gods? - so maybe Ares or Artemis as options to it? or maybe replace the Orthodox faith with Camilla sect), but their unit roster would contain both amazons (Female Knights now?) and some man units as well. Their units should also use Thermite (or now Byzantium fire? - just like later Bizantium empire did)

Western Empire would stay pretty much the same with Catholic Christiansy and utilizing many advanced tech units - such as War Wagons, Carriages, Mobile Siege Towers draw by Elephants, or Balistas on Elephants (Something like Timurid has in ME2, but not with Cannons), Auxilery units, super heavy Decree Ships and mercaneries.

Romano-British - should be a separate faction - led by Witches of Avalon instead - they would be something like Teutonic Order from Teutonic Campaign of ME2, so that they don't have regular family tree and patricians, but instead are Sisterhood (Geothe are like that, though i am not sure if it can be made to a Teutonic Order degree). They would be Pagan faction of Amazons (still with some few male units, but no Gral Knights and such, as they are not Christians anymore) - Morgana could be the first High Priestess to start with! ;-D

Sasands - should probably still stay the same, though if Zorastriam is replaced, maybe some other faction could replace them as well - like Far East Celts that would survive till this time (maybe not Pagan, but some other faith as well - Orthodox one).


*Barbarian factions(Can HORDE)*

Alemari, Saxons and Franks should remain same, as they held back empire spread through out middle Europe. But with some new units (both female and non female, as women were more equal in this societies then in Rome for instance - the Screaching Women should be brought back, and some bloodthirsty amazons/barbarians as well) - all of them Pagan factions.
Alemari and Franks are mainly enemies with Rome, and Saxons are still poised to strike again Romano-British (now Witches of Avalon).

Thyssagate Alliance - would replace Saramatians, and held the north eastern parts of Europe. They would be dedicated Orthodox religion (with some pagan options for Kybelee and Demeter?). They would be more 'Vikking girls' this time around, with more focus on ground units - heavy spearwomen, Agema axewomen, Billwomen, and still had naked;-) Finnic Amazons , with no mounted archers(THIS should be very unique thing, and not everyone should have it, not even some amazon factions) or elephants.(Its cold, brrrrr)


*Horde starting Factions*

Huns should be mixed with Geothe Amazons, and come like some heavy-nuking shit. Geothe priestesses, being defeated by the alliance of Scythians, Saramatians and Thyssians run to the east and swore revenge upon them and all of the world. There Geothe would killed Attila during his march to the east and usurped his power. Then replaced his paganism worship with bloody Camilla sect, that would allows you to sacrifice prisoners of war and population to improve the happiness of people (Some units should require certain amount of religion in the region to be buildable) - This would be similar to Native Americans in ME2 Kingdoms campaigns. They should also get a new name (don't know yet - or maybe just Geothe) - they would start as Horde faction at the eastern borders of Europe. Their units should be some advance things of what the Geothe Amazons have now (Priestess Guard, Cathaparact Archers, Pathfinders, Balista Elephants), still with the heavy focus on horses and cavalry that comes from Huns.

Can't think of more right now (Something with Vandals damn!), and have to go back to work... That's just some ideas that came to mind.

BTW - NO need to create 200 units for each faction, even few 10-15 is enough, just make each more unique and special.

[-Nietzsche-]

@partian shot:
You begin to impress me a little bit LoL
I think I'll better move to "historical references" for not going completely off-topic, here.

One thing I never bothered in modding tw beforehands:
Bow-Shooting-Speed.
As I already mentioned, bows in ancient times could be shot much faster than we are all used to in tw. Is it possible to swap the "set the arrows on fire"-Button with a "Shoot as fast as you can"-Option?
This might change the way to use Archers in the game dramatically. If we could drop the time used to shoot one arrow down to a second (that's fast, but not not even near something like a world record), this would instantly stop even the thoughest armoured unit from doing anything else than taking cover.
If we do the math, it becomes pretty obvious: A bunch of just 50 Archers can spill out 500 Arrows within 10 seconds...

[parthian shot]

@partian shot:
You begin to impress me a little bit LoL
I think I'll better move to "historical references" for not going completely off-topic, here.

One thing I never bothered in modding tw beforehands:
Bow-Shooting-Speed.
As I already mentioned, bows in ancient times could be shot much faster than we are all used to in tw. Is it possible to swap the "set the arrows on fire"-Button with a "Shoot as fast as you can"-Option?
This might change the way to use Archers in the game dramatically. If we could drop the time used to shoot one arrow down to a second (that's fast, but not not even near something like a world record), this would instantly stop even the thoughest armoured unit from doing anything else than taking cover.
If we do the math, it becomes pretty obvious: A bunch of just 50 Archers can spill out 500 Arrows within 10 seconds...

Or have each archer shoot more than one missile per volley?

Like you touched on a bit, the issue I see is the AI, AI would not let the troop to "take cover", to start, that animation sequence is not part of the skeleton hierarchy. Nor will AI have the knowledge to use it.

So more destructive fire power will only make the enemy to be "eaten away" faster, a point many comments are already noting, it is too "one sided".

Our current balance is not trying to make the game one way or another, I simply timed the cycle for each type of missile to load the weapon. So unless there is a bug, the reload speed is as realistic as we can get it.

I have asked BB to look into open source game engine which can replace Rome Total War, we have made some progress, with help from the Darthmod people. But we are waiting for Rome II to come out to decide if we should go with

1. Rome II
2. M2TW
3. Open source

With open source, we can definitely have the AI equipped with the intelligence of taking cover, among other maneuvers to make the game more complete.

[-Nietzsche-]

Jupp, you are right - the AI has had some issues, always. A "Fast-Shooting-Option" in the Game would be like an "Erase-this-unit"-Button... and the amount of work requried to include fast shooting is way too much for just optimizing a little detail in the game.

[parthian shot]

That looks like a very interesting plan. Thank You Balgeron!

The only problems I see right now are two slight issues

1. Each campaign folder can only change the map, the troop locations and who are leading them.
Campaign can not change religion, for example, when this mod was created in 2008, it disabled Christianity
Campaign can not add new types of troops, so to bring back Saxons, Huns, and Franks can be done but it will impact other campaigns

2. Since Christianity is already taking foothold in Europe, what we need is the story line to make the new campaign believable. I really like the Viking girl part, but the whole thing needs to be refined.

Hello

I posted at the download in Moddb of new version, if you will be making Barbarian Invasion Campaign - i actually thought you are already set for it, and its gonna happen. But i now see it was just suggestions here.

I also read that you would try it, but it seems like its in the original game - with Parthia , Armens, Carthage ? What about Barbarian Invasion campaign? (is the BI campaign using the same template just with some new things? that factions are also replacements, like Burgundians or Saramatians instead of Averns and Scythians?)

If i may put out some brainstorming - hopefully it will help.

First of all, the campaign even though it would be alternate timeline, due to Amazon involvement during Rise of the Empire time - i think that it should still focused a lot on religions and nation migration like the BI campaign did.

So the Amazons should have all Camilla religion (i think this cult is pretty much strongest across all of the factions) as opposition to Christiansy and Paganism (Thus it could take Zorastriam place? Or maybe a new type of religion, if such thing is possible to make instead of replacement)

However not all of the Amazons should follow it as well - we should definitely have at least one Pagan Amazons and maybe even Christian one.

So one of the scenarios could be (i don't write all of the factions, as there are many minor ones like Burgundians, Roxolany, Visigoths, etc... that can be replaced for something new)-

*Civilized Factions(Cannot HORDE)*

Rome still expands, screw the Gauls, but Caesar still gets owned and all the chance of expanding to the north east dies with him. Rome conquers pretty much the same thing like in actual history, but with different enemies. It eventually turns to Christianism and split up on eastern and western part.

Here could come some changes - Eastern Empire could be change into Amazon like faction or mixed one(after absorbing Thermodan Amazons/maybe even Lybian amazons). With Empress instead of Emperor. They would still be Orthodox christiansy(in BI, they had some other faiths as well - greek/egypt gods? - so maybe Ares or Artemis as options to it? or maybe replace the Orthodox faith with Camilla sect), but their unit roster would contain both amazons (Female Knights now?) and some man units as well. Their units should also use Thermite (or now Byzantium fire? - just like later Bizantium empire did)

Western Empire would stay pretty much the same with Catholic Christiansy and utilizing many advanced tech units - such as War Wagons, Carriages, Mobile Siege Towers draw by Elephants, or Balistas on Elephants (Something like Timurid has in ME2, but not with Cannons), Auxilery units, super heavy Decree Ships and mercaneries.

Romano-British - should be a separate faction - led by Witches of Avalon instead - they would be something like Teutonic Order from Teutonic Campaign of ME2, so that they don't have regular family tree and patricians, but instead are Sisterhood (Geothe are like that, though i am not sure if it can be made to a Teutonic Order degree). They would be Pagan faction of Amazons (still with some few male units, but no Gral Knights and such, as they are not Christians anymore) - Morgana could be the first High Priestess to start with! ;-D

Sasands - should probably still stay the same, though if Zorastriam is replaced, maybe some other faction could replace them as well - like Far East Celts that would survive till this time (maybe not Pagan, but some other faith as well - Orthodox one).


*Barbarian factions(Can HORDE)*

Alemari, Saxons and Franks should remain same, as they held back empire spread through out middle Europe. But with some new units (both female and non female, as women were more equal in this societies then in Rome for instance - the Screaching Women should be brought back, and some bloodthirsty amazons/barbarians as well) - all of them Pagan factions.
Alemari and Franks are mainly enemies with Rome, and Saxons are still poised to strike again Romano-British (now Witches of Avalon).

Thyssagate Alliance - would replace Saramatians, and held the north eastern parts of Europe. They would be dedicated Orthodox religion (with some pagan options for Kybelee and Demeter?). They would be more 'Vikking girls' this time around, with more focus on ground units - heavy spearwomen, Agema axewomen, Billwomen, and still had naked;-) Finnic Amazons , with no mounted archers(THIS should be very unique thing, and not everyone should have it, not even some amazon factions) or elephants.(Its cold, brrrrr)


*Horde starting Factions*

Huns should be mixed with Geothe Amazons, and come like some heavy-nuking shit. Geothe priestesses, being defeated by the alliance of Scythians, Saramatians and Thyssians run to the east and swore revenge upon them and all of the world. There Geothe would killed Attila during his march to the east and usurped his power. Then replaced his paganism worship with bloody Camilla sect, that would allows you to sacrifice prisoners of war and population to improve the happiness of people (Some units should require certain amount of religion in the region to be buildable) - This would be similar to Native Americans in ME2 Kingdoms campaigns. They should also get a new name (don't know yet - or maybe just Geothe) - they would start as Horde faction at the eastern borders of Europe. Their units should be some advance things of what the Geothe Amazons have now (Priestess Guard, Cathaparact Archers, Pathfinders, Balista Elephants), still with the heavy focus on horses and cavalry that comes from Huns.

Can't think of more right now (Something with Vandals damn!), and have to go back to work... That's just some ideas that came to mind.

BTW - NO need to create 200 units for each faction, even few 10-15 is enough, just make each more unique and special.