Re: Download & Install information
I would recommend deleting all the maps in \battle\maps, including the two subfolders (viking and smap), before installing STWmod beta_7. None of the MTW/VI maps will look right with the STW textures until they are manually retextured using the map editor. This will be a lot of work, and will take time to build up the available maps for use in STWmod.Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul
Right now, the beta_7 install overwrites the maps used in the campaign with the 60 retextured STW maps from the original Shogun v1.12 campaign. MTW does not assign a particular map to a particular province, and instead selects a map from a name group based on the terrain of the two adjoining provinces. For example, if an attack comes from a flat province into a hilly province, then the game selects from the flattohilly group. At this time, I'm not sure that a map that matches the description of the terrain will always be chosen, but I did group the STW maps according to their terrain type such as flat, hilly or mountain for both non-river and river maps. This is going to require further testing. Some of the name groups contained a lot of maps, so I used suitable STW maps for some groups more than once. If deleting all MTW/VI maps becomes a pre-requisite for installing STWmod, these name groups can be made smaller thus reducing the number of maps needed.
The STWmod beta_7 also puts the original 60 maps in \savemaps under their original province names so they can be easily identified for use in custom or MP battles, and also includes 24 castle maps and 38 of the custom maps included with STW v1.12 or created by players for a total of 122 maps. Some of these maps provided excellent tactical gameplay, but all are small maps and not suitable for more than a 2v2 in MP because the red zone was expanded to 3 tiles in MTW which significantly reduces the playable area, since unlike original STW, it's not possible to cross into the red zone.
I think these original STWmaps should work well in the campaign. Battles with reinforcements will be shorter, and the fatigue rate is better suited to small maps. One issue I noticed in testing is that terrain which should be impassible is, in fact, passible. I'm not sure why. I'll have to look into this.
The next phase of map conversion I'll work on is retexturing some of the better custom maps from WE/MI such as Horselands. Since water is impassable in MTW, some interesting maps such as Riverlands will have to have the water removed to be playable. Once enough large MTW maps have been retextured, they can be used as the campaign maps for those who want to have large maps in the campaign.
In testing, I saw a problem in one castle battle. The AI which was supposed to be sieging a castle started inside the castle. I believe this happened when I sent reinforcements to lift a siege. This will have to be looked into further. The castles themselves may be too strong or too weak. Some feedback on this would be welcome. Right now, all walls, towers, keeps and guardhouses shoot, so the castles are exhibiting their maximum firepower. There are non-shooting versions of all of these structuces which can be substituted. Also, the rate of fire could be increased by barocca if the castles are considered to be too weak. I don't yet have maps for castle sizes 6 and 7 since original STW didn't have castles that large.
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