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Thread: Ancient TW2 - THRACIAN faction (RoP)

  1. #1
    Second-hand chariot salesman Senior Member macsen rufus's Avatar
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    Default Ancient TW2 - THRACIAN faction (RoP)

    Starting in the single province of Thrace, hard against the Illyrians to the west, Macedonians to the south and Scythians to the east, the Thracians are a decidedly barbarian faction. With two rebel provinces (Dacia and Agriana) to go for, though, there are opportunites to expand without starting a major war - if you get there first!

    Because tribal boundaries can be a bit fluid, there is slightly more variety than may be expected...

    Thracian Troop Roster (start province only)

    • Thracian Cavalry (Royal)*
    • Thracian Peltasts
    • Thracian Romfeoforoi
    • Illyrian Tribesmen
    • Slingers
    • Tribal Archers
    • Tribal Hunting Party
    • Tribal Spearmen
    • Tribal Pikemen


    * Thracian Cavalry will need a tweak due to the Royal era thing.... working on that.

    They are a bit short of decent archers (the Tribal Hunting Party is a good unit, but small) so they will have to go in search of some more promising provinces. Within fairly easy reach, they can recruit Scythian Horse Archers, Dacian Romfeoforoi, Agrianes and also the Cimmerian troops. The Cimmerians are a dying race, pushed out of their homelands long ago by the Scythians - only a few archers, spearmen and axemen are left, holed up in an insignificant part of the map. Leave it too long and they will be gone (which is to say they can only be recruited in 'early').

    Although the faction doesn't start with a historical king, the Royal names list ensures that some historical kings will appear during the 'high' era. Records of Thracian kings don't go back to 560BC, unfortunately.

    A typical Thracian army in the field, with the Thracian Romfeoforoi in the foreground (and, yes, I'd already taken Agriana, so there are some Agrianes in there, too)

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Member Member dimitrios the samian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ancient TW2 - THRACIAN faction (RoP)

    Great reading here Mac .
    I will enjoy playing this faction , difficult but rewarding once you get past the Macs !

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    Second-hand chariot salesman Senior Member macsen rufus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ancient TW2 - THRACIAN faction (RoP)

    I was really enjoying testing this one out, but of course the modder's curse hit - I needed to make some changes that weren't save-game compatible.

    Due to what I was testing I didn't go for the Greeks at all, I was trying to watch how they were teching up - so I headed east instead. The other barbarians didn't know what hit 'em

    Found a couple of units a bit overpowered so will tweak stats and tech requirements as appropriate - basically Agrianes and Thracian Romfs are too easy to get.

    Been giving the Macedonians a whirl today and making progress on the Greek tech-tree, implementing a few ideas around the province resource system. Coming together nicely...
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    Member Member dimitrios the samian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ancient TW2 - THRACIAN faction (RoP)

    Mac ,
    I'm looking forward to beta testing these Thracians .
    I may fast forward the Thracian bif I want to do just in front of the African Hoplite
    (as he is for your next release & will be separate install I hope )
    I enjoy testing out units in Custom Battle & ........ i'll have a guess the Romfeoforie are overpowered ?
    I have found all the original units used for Thracians by the Hellenic team & all look good , just some minor touching up to distinguish them from Persians .
    Which bif are you planning on using for the Tribals Units ?
    Last edited by dimitrios the samian; 06-26-2016 at 04:11.

  5. #5
    Second-hand chariot salesman Senior Member macsen rufus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ancient TW2 - THRACIAN faction (RoP)

    The tribal units have a variety of bodies: the archers are from the same BIF as the Thr Peltast, Spears use the HTW trouser-wearing barbarians, Hunting Party I'm not sure now, but probably the tunic style one, and the pikes are based on original MTW 'topless loon', which I've modified mostly for the benefit of the Celtic factions in Ancient 1 and 3 (ie Bronze and Roman).

    Don't forget, there is very little scope left for new textures BIFs as all the space is currently used up - every new variant means culling something else, so there's not much mileage in minor tweaks - and the Thracian/Persian thing fits that, I think. There's differentiation in weapons, shields and formations, and for the sake of textures space, I think that's all we can afford, compared to others that give us a better return (like Indian infantry and African hoplites Talking of which I think the 'Indians' could also pass for more convincing Libyan units than the current texture, so I might tweak that one soon...)

    I still have a 'textures cull' on the 'to-do' list, so once that's sorted I'll know how much scope we have left for new BIFs I think maybe one or two chariots can go, and the early Romans, and there's one other I recall seeing and thinking 'who are you these days?', so maybe three or four spaces - of which one is definitely spoken for, maybe two, already.

    And back to the original topic:

    • The royal cavalry units have been straightened out now
    • Romfeoforoi tech requirements and price have both been increased


    I was watching the Thracians from my perch in Athens during my latest Athens play-through, and the AI seems to play them aggressively, and they usually go for Agriana before the AI-Macedonians get their junk together. However, the AI-Illyrians and AI-Scyths give them a hard time, and the squabbling between these three factions over Dacia is rather fun to watch

    I'm glad to say, after recent changes, the international stage is now a lot more turbulent than when I first started developing the scenario, which at one point seemed to deserve the name 'Ancient: Total Peace'. Now the barbarians are always fighting within a turn or two, Persia reliably attacks the Medes, Egypt is becoming more aggressive (funny, as I've not worked on them yet....) and the Gandharans are cautious expanders into provinces they need.

    Factions that still need to be played through before I release a beta are: Persia, Egypt, and Argos. By the time I've done those I might need to revisit the Medes and Babylonians, but just to double-check some changes. I really need to find out why the Persians take Hyrcania and then just spam ships into the Caspian and bankrupt themselves with the upkeep....

    OK, back to Athens for a while now - the Lydians have been giving me some real grief, and there's something I need to test in Sardis
    ANCIENT: TW

    A mod for Medieval:TW (with VI)

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    Download A Game of Thrones Mod v1.4

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