Discussion and Announcements

[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

[DimeBagHo]

bcain13: There are not very many alternative maps available. The ones I know of that are available as (more or less) free standing mods, are Mundus Magnus (the map used in XGM), and War Map, which uses a very different approach to map design. Unfortunately I don't think that the type of map you want is readily available.

[bcain13]

Thanks for the info.

One quick question though, i just downloaded 4.1.2 and i am getting an "Invalid or corrupt jarfile" error when i try to install? I have downloaded it twice now to the same effect. Any ideas?

Once again GREAT MOD!

[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

[DimeBagHo]

XGM version 4.1.4 is now available for download.

You can get it here.
You can see a (slightly out of date) readme here.

The major changes are:

-Added Modding Legions skins (by ferres, Pinarius, GODzilla, and others)
-Reskinned Eastern Horse Archers
-Reskinned Cataphract Archers
-Added larger sword to Persian Cavalry and Cataphract Archers

XGM Version 4.1.3

-Fixed CTD on second battle, related to sprites
-Custom and Historical battles now work with BI-XGM (thanks Maced0n!)
-Tweaked Persian cavalry stats

XGM Version 4.1.2

-Added ATGs Greek Generals and General's Horse
-Added Cataphract Camels to Seleucids and Seleucid Rebels
-Added Cataphract Archers to Parthia
-Added Cataphract Camel Archers to Parthia
-Improved Parthia's starting conditions
-Added new victory conditions for Parthia

bcain13: No idea. Might be a corrupt download.

satchef1: In the games I've seen the Romans, Germany, and Thrace usually put pressure on the Gauls. Also Thrace usually expands quite quickly into the area where Dacia used to be. Of course, if you kill the other two mainland Greek factions early you might have some problems.

[satchef1]

seems i reacted a bit quickly, should have tested it a bit more first.
The campaign has become quite interesting, the Iberians suddenly pushed carthage out of Iberia and moved east, destroying Gaul. Thrace is in big trouble, they've managed to end up surrounded by enemies! Rome, Parthia and Germanium are at war with them, i had to take a ceasefire due to Rome suddenly deciding they like the look of some of my cities (whats this about captured roman eagles?). Oddly, the Greek Cities after being pushed out of Greece by me have expanded east and destroyed the Selucids and now have the most land and biggest army! Could be interesting if they suddenly decide to head back to Greece
Its an interesting mod, very different from Vanilla!

[Agathon]

DBHo,

I've wanted to thank you for some time, for the tip about the excellent skins, but I've been selfishly applying them to what is (unfortunately but necessarily must remain) my older version of your mod.

I'm downloading 4.1.5 as I type, so don't think that I won't install it.

I was thinking that editing the numerous names files to standardize Greek names would be a commendable project for someone like myself. I cringe almost every time I see a name like Pefkalos or Anaksarxos or Aristidis. These spellings suggest that the compiler was slightly more comfortable in the Modern Demotic Greek idiom than in either Modern English or Ancient Attic-Ionian Greek.

The extensive doubling of names with their Modern English and Latin equivalents is another mild irritation. For example: Alexandros exists side by side with Alexander, and Demetrios with Demetrius. Philippos probably reappears in three separate forms, one of which, Philipos, is merely an error, as it occurs in neither English, Latin or Greek.

I know how pedantic this must sound, but I should recommend an "alignment" of the character-names as an improvement.

[Agathon]

Most of my experience with the older version of EGM playing with Greeks is that when I have stalemated the Julii in the great bowling alley that is Italy (that's right, the Julii start tossing large stacks of early roman legionaris early in the campaign toward the 7-10 split that is Tarentum and Croton,) the Julii, once punched in the nose by sturdy greek phalangites, will divert their aggression toward Gaul and Carthage.

Just set Pyrrhus of Epirus up near Cannae and let him solidly defeat the first Vibius Julius who shows up looking for a chance to besiege Tarantum. The "toe" and "heel" of Italy are largely defended by walls of mountains, Defend the few passes between Tarentum and Capua with fortresses and small garrisons and Pyrrhus sits astride the plains near Cannae like a spider in her web, waiting for some inexperienced Romans to enter her trap.

By all means, you should bribe Croton into your Greek alliance as early as possible, and be sure that your emissary reaches Croton before any Romans come to besiege her. Once bribed, Croton gives some good quality troops.

As soon as the Romans lose a significant stack in combat in the South, they'll reverse their tide and turn toward rebel Genua and Carthaginian Aleria. As I've observed, an attack on Genua usually brings the Romans into war with Gaul.

Next time I post, I may mention some observations concerning the Thracian AI and its evident aims.

[Agathon]

I just checked, and discovered that I'm running XGM version 3.6.13 with RTW without BI patched to version 1.5.

Before installing the latest version, I've backed up my old XGM 3.6.13 to mt second hard drive, hoping to save my little unit mods and other tweaks for future reference.

With that in mind, DBHo, I was wondering if you would recommend installing BI when I reinstall my RTW Gold. In short, do you think the XGM in its current form will work best with RTW 1.5 or RTW-BI 1.6?

As a further consideration, do you think that having XGM with BI 1.6 would be more of a help or a hindrance to the kind of continuing modification that I have undertaken in the past?

As to my pedantic little rant about standardizing names files:

You say Alexander. I say Alexandros.
You say Ptolemeus, and I say Ptolemaios.
Alexander - Alexandros -
Ptolemeus - Ptolemaios -
Let's call the whole thing off.

As for editing the names lists, I may have neglected to mention that I have already tried. In fact, I've attacked this thing about three different times, perhaps more than that, if one considers that I was first attracted to the task by the unusually large number of pre-hellenic coptic names attached to the Ptolemaic faction characters. So I began by editing the names of the royal family as found in desc.strat., and, after a whole Saturday's work and a few CD's, I actually was able to get a working version to load with Ptanthotep (or whatever) renamed to Ptolemaios and his heir to Dionysios.

I was able with the Ptolemies to rename all the people in desc.strat from the wives and royal princesses down to the lowliest garrison captains, the Ptolemaic admiral, the diplomat and the spy. However, when I went on to replace Egyptian names *not* used in desc.strat with Greek names, I started to experience CD's again. So my repsonse was to review, overhaul and edit all the names for all the greek factions, and what began as a "day" project, I soon realised, could consume whole weeks with explorer and as many as six or more windows opened on my desktop at a time (not counting the search and replace windows attached to each opened file.)

My approach to the task from the "editing" standpoint was this:

[1] To spell consistantly existing faction names in accordance with modern phonetic and orthographic standards currently employed in the translation of ancient Greek texts. For example:

faction: greek_cities

characters
Acaeus Akaios
Acamus Akamos
Acestes Akestes
Aclepiades Aklepiades
Acrisias Akrisias
Acroneos Akroneos
Adeimanthos Adeimanthos (unchanged)
Admetos Admetos (unchanged)
Adrastos Adrastos (unchanged)
Adymos Adymos (unchanged)
Aegicoros Aigikoros

So far, the only things that have changed, are that c's have become k's and that the Latin dipthong ae has been hellenized to ai. The significant change to the RTW list is that latinized greek names like Acaeus are no longer present in the revision standing alongside non-latinized names like Admetos.

[2] To replace names duplicated and triplicated in the lists with different (and I might just as well add improbable) spellings with new names whenever and wherever duplicates deviated most from the actual Greek. For example:

Philip Philippias
Philipos Philippides
Philippos Philippos (unchanged)

It's worth noting from the example that RTW's "Philip" is the Modern English form of the Greek "Philippos," and that it is very improbable that RTW's rendering "Philipos" could have been derived from the Greek "Hippos" (horse). In editing, I merely chose to replace what I reasoned to be inconsistant duplicate names with actual alternate derivative forms of Philippos that one could encounter in Greek Literature. (For Philippides of Athens, see Herodotus vi. 105, 106.)

[3] To eradicate silly or baseless names from the lists. If an example is needed, try:

faction: thrace

characters

Mukaboris
Mukos
Mukazeis
Mukakenthos
Mukapaibes
Mukaporis
Mukazenis

It's the entire "M" section for Thrace, a group of frequently recurring names that I privately call the "Mukos-Membrane brothers." My index for Thukydides' History of the Peloponnesian War covers this same ground alphabetically with "Motya, Munichia, and Mykale." The index for Herodotos' Inquiries shows "Mossynoikians, Munychia, Musaios, and Mykale" for the same sequence in the alphabet. Aside from the alternate spellings for the name of a one-goat-town in Attika, the only significant thing to take from these index citings is the apparent absence of "Mukos" derived names. Etymologically, "Mykos" derived names would have proved themselves a more probable option. Take for example Thukydides' statement at 1. 10: "Mykenai certainly was a small place ..." Mycenaean Greek civilization is not quite the same as Mucousaean Membrane civilization, is it?
...

These were the three things about the names (as they are) that I most wanted to change. On the whole, I think it is important to stress that I was not and am not interested in replacing the old names with new ones of my own choosing. Rather, I would like most to simply standardize and, in so doing, hellenize the existing names.

Bearing in mind objectively that standardization and hellenization of the greek names is primarilly in its results a subjective and ascetic pursuit that remains, as it were, in the eyes of the beholder, it remains my opinion that a uniquely "Greek" mod designed for the enhancement of play for those who enjoy playing with "Greek" factions should use standardized hellenic names for the characters in those factions.