Discussion and Announcements

[Guyus Germanicus]

DBH -

Just wanted to let you know my XGM is working now. I installed the RTW/BI patch 1.6. Once I did that I simply tried to load XGM again and it went smoothly.

There is some confusing information out there on the totalwar.com website about versions. Obviously, I bought a version of the Gold Edition that had v 1.4 of BI wedded to version 1.5 of RTW. Bad packaging error on the part of CA/SEGA especially when they state unequivocally on the website that the Gold Edition has the latest patches included. But the README file on the total war website is also misleading. Their update to add a public order bonus for the Academy series of buildings was never coded. Thankfully, someone on the Total War Center support site had the code to show how you can add the logic to the RTW software yourself. It's very simple actually. Also, the README file said that the Gauls can no longer recruit Naked Fanatics. I believe this is false as well. They should either correct the README file or remove it altogether to reduce the confusion.

Couple possible bugs in XGM? In my first battle taking the Greeks vs the Macedonians, my unit of mercenary hoplites never showed any spears. Also, the bow & arrow never showed up when I commanded my mercenary peltests to attack an enemy phalanx. After recommanding them several times and setting them in loose formation, (just coincidence?), they finally started hurling their javelins. But I had to keep reissuing the command to attack.

My goodness, but the action was immediate. Macedonia was heavily fortified with stacks in their cities when the game opened. And they were very aggressive. Their navy was everywhere. The game starts in 280 BC and by 277 BC I had fought three major epic battles with the crossed swords showing on the campaign map. I was expecting a little more build up before such a rough and tumble encounter with the AI. The combat pace is a bit slower than what I was expecting, but I believe you warned users of that. The victory condition seems a bit daunting - 70 regions! Plus conquering the four corners of the world? You have added cities to the campaign map, so perhaps the 70 regions may not be as awesome a task as I'm thinking it is at the moment. I haven't played BI much, so the loyalty bar feature on the faction members screen is something I'll have to get used to.

Another possible bug? Victoria sometimes gives advice when you solicit her inside a city's screen, and sometimes she doesn't. Given that I had more choices for temples and shrines, I was hoping she would make some calls for me as to what I should build, but I wasn't getting any help. Once when I asked her for help at Rhodes, she recommended a building that was whited-out because my cash was so low. Mr. Centurion was gone altogether in the combat screen.

All in all this is a remarkable effort what you all have put together here. You and your team should be proud of yourselves for the coding and design work you did. My compliments.

[kburkert]

DBH -
Victoria sometimes gives advice when you solicit her inside a city's screen, and sometimes she doesn't. Given that I had more choices for temples and shrines, I was hoping she would make some calls for me as to what I should build, but I wasn't getting any help. Once when I asked her for help at Rhodes, she recommended a building that was whited-out because my cash was so low. Mr. Centurion was gone altogether in the combat screen.

That would seem to be something that CA did wrong rather than XGM.

Macedon beats Greek cities.

[kburkert]

Did you have advice turned off or on low?

[Guyus Germanicus]

To answer kburkert,

I had the advice, at first, set to medium. It's usually where I have it set in vanilla RTW too. I believe I switched it around a few times. I will have to do some more gaming on XGM. Since I'm in the middle of a couple campaigns in RTW, I was distracted by those games and didn't want to get into learning all the nooks and crannies of XGM since the game played in a way I wasn't expecting. Because there was no build up, but I was plunged immediately into a life and death struggle with Macedon, I was getting frustrated with the different feel. I thought to be fair, I need to give the game a fresh start without the distraction of another campaign. It's a quirk of mine that I will get deep into a campaign and then start a new one before I've completed the last one. I've got about four different RTW games going at once right now. Seleucia, Carthage, Julii and Scipii.

My "complaint" about the mercenary hoplites having no spears was not valid. DBH said somewhere in one of his write-ups on XGM that these hoplites are not phalanx capable but play the traditional hoplite infantry role. So they're not supposed to have spears. I just didn't realize that.

I like the new skins for the most part. That was one of the things that attracted me to the mod in the first place, that, and the added depth to the "Greek" factions' schedules of units. RTW's Greek faction is so limited. You have no real good cav to speak of, and you max out the infantry development early.

I just wasn't ready for the lack of build-up. (Don't mean to belabor the point.) Had I been playing on hard or very hard, I think selecting the Greeks would have been sure doom. They are at a definite disadvantage to Macedonia at the start. The extra cities - Colchis and Mytilene - along with a strong established navy and a few heavy stacks of units, give Macedonia a definite edge. But . . . that's probably historically accurate for 280 BC. The Greek city states were in a very definite decline during and after Alexander. Macedon was a formidable political and military competitor to the 3rd century BC Roman Republic.

I definitely like the historic correction of "Egypt" in XGM with Ptolemaic Egypt. That's a real irritant with me in vanilla RTW. And, I want to take a closer look at the Seleucids in XGM. They have become me favorite faction in vanilla RTW. Their starting position in RTW is a nice challenge, they have good cash flow once things get going, and they have great depth of military units. They are geographically positioned well for acquiring all the ancient wonders which make good stepping stones on the route to conquering Rome.

[Agathon]

I enjoy playing this mod. I exclusively play greek factions and have been fine tuning some of the units, recruitment and extras as I've read different modding tutorials and applied them to the mod. My favourite thing to do is to add new units to the game. As I remember it, Dimebagho, in an early thread you did recommend your XGM mod as a good spring board for amateurs like me to enter world of RTW modding. I hope you can forgive some of the liberties I've taken with it.

To spice up the Macedonian factions, I've added a greek hoplite unit to the Macedonians and the Seleucids that's better than a merc hoplite unit or militia hoplites, and about the same as regular hoplites in capability but with a slight discount in costs. It's cheaper than its GCS twin, since it represents a standard allied greek hoplite phalanx company of the kind that might have appeared in the composite armies in the Greek theatre where mainline troops might have been recruited from the member cities of the Corinthian League.

I used the "Corinthian" hidden resouce to limit its recruitment exclusively to cities of the pre-classical colonization period. This means that the Seleucid empire could only start a campaign with the ability to recruit allied hoplites in Sardis alone (since Ephesus was a pre-classical Ionian city, and Sardis is the only settlement in the Seleucid empire with Pre-Persian conquest Greek culture.)

The problem with my projects is that I lack both the time and means to engage in extensive skin and texture designs. I've noticed that some have mentioned other greek skins no longer present in XGM that were once available for downloading. Any ideas or recommendations?

[DimeBagHo]

XGM version 4.1.0 is now available for download.

You can get it here.
You can see the readme here.

The major changes are:

-Old saved games will not work
-Britons converted to Seleucid rebels
-Dacia converted to Ptolemaic rebels
-Loyalty activated for Seleucids and Ptolemies
-Added AOR Indian Spearmen (recruitable by all factions in India)
-Added AOR Indian Longbowmen (recruitable by all factions in India)
-Added AOR Indian War Elephants (recruitable by all factions in India)
-Added Javelin Chariots to Gauls
-Changed starting provinces for Parthia
-Changed starting provinces for Numidia
-Moved Urban Cohorts back to Imperial Barracks

Agathon: There are some excellent Greek skins around. Take a look at these for example:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=24291
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=54958

[bcain13]

One thing I have been looking for lately is new maps to play on. Can you recommend anything? Ideally I would like something with more Mediterranean provinces (Greece, Anatolia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa) and less in Gaul, Germany, north Asia etc.

Looked into doing this myself and quickly realized that it would be beyond my abilities (just a player not a programmer :) )

I know there is a 200 province limit but maybe the number of 'outer' provinces could be reduced for more in other areas. Or change the over all map for just the med and the middle east and then add the barbarians (Gaul, Germany, Scythia, Parthia) on the edges al la RTW Barbarians. An Indian empire off some sorts would be interesting also.

I am not asking much eh? :) Guess I am just finally getting my wish list down on paper!

Cheers

[satchef1]

XGM version 4.1.0 is now available for download.

You can get it here.
You can see the readme here.

The major changes are:

-Old saved games will not work
-Britons converted to Seleucid rebels
-Dacia converted to Ptolemaic rebels
-Loyalty activated for Seleucids and Ptolemies
-Added AOR Indian Spearmen (recruitable by all factions in India)
-Added AOR Indian Longbowmen (recruitable by all factions in India)
-Added AOR Indian War Elephants (recruitable by all factions in India)
-Added Javelin Chariots to Gauls
-Changed starting provinces for Parthia
-Changed starting provinces for Numidia
-Moved Urban Cohorts back to Imperial Barracks

Agathon: There are some excellent Greek skins around. Take a look at these for example:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=24291
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=54958

Anyone else finding the new version makes things a bit difficult for The Greek Cities and Macedon? The lack of Dacia and The Britons makes The Gauls very powerful very early on!
Ive tried starting a new campaign a few times now and every time Gaul expands through all the lands Dacia would normally hold, theres a distinct lack of any challenger to Gauls power! The result is that if your playing as Macedon, The Greek Cities or Rome you get crushed because the only way to survive is to grab as many rebel provinces as possible at the start of the campaign and the only ones they can get bring them into war with Gaul and each other
Maybe removing a different faction like Numidia and keeping Dacia would be a better idea?

Other than that the mod is brilliant! Using phalanx based armies is much more fun/easier than it was in Vanilla