RTW or RTW:BI?

[ScionTheWorm]

Should we base Age of vikings and fanatics: Total War on vanilla RTW or the expansion pack Barbarian Invasion?

Feature summary:

• Barbarian hordes
• New special abilities (shieldwall, 'hedgehog', swimming)
• New units to steal heads and body from
• Religion, choice to convert
• Generals
• Rebellions
• The huns feature...?
  

This is by the way just to measure opinions, nothing else...


Barbarian Hordes - A barbarian faction can flee en masse from an attacker and take its entire people in search of a new homeland. When a faction loses its last settlement the entire population can move as a series of horde armies. If - and when - the faction manage to conquer a new homeland region, the people can again settle and begin life anew. While a faction is ‘on the road’ it can’t recruit new units other than mercenaries, but it doesn’t pay any upkeep on its armies. Hordes are a ‘get out of jail’ card for some factions facing defeat - or they may just get hacked to pieces as they run!

New Units - New factions means new units! In fact, almost every unit in BI is new. This means that there are plenty of new tactical tricks to discover, strengths to play up, and weaknesses to exploit! Every faction in the game has a ‘signature’ unit that is unique to them, such as the axe-throwing Francisca Heerbann of the Franks to the ultra-heavy Sassanid Clibinarii cavalry. Even apparently familiar units have been revised.

New Special Abilities - Some units in the game have new special abilities. The Shield Wall allows barbarian elites to ‘lock’ themselves into a defensive stance and withstand frontal attacks. The Schiltron is a defensive ‘hedgehog’ formation for spear-armed troops - great for withstanding cavalry, but very vulnerable to missile fire. Swimming allows light troops to cross rivers and flank defenders who think they are safe at one end of a bridge or ford!

A modified technology tree - allows barbarians to build and expand larger settlements. It also includes new buildings to reflect the changed importance given to religion at this time in history.

A new campaign map - Europe and the Empire have changed after 350 years of Roman rule since the end of the main Rome: Total War campaign. The new map reflects the shifts in population and wealth that have gone on.

Religion - is now an important factor. Christianity has become the dominant religion of the Empire, but it’s your choice whether or not to revert to paganism in the hope that this will bring victory. Barbarian factions can convert, opening up new parts of the technology tree in the process.

Generals - can now be recruited as well as adopted into the family. There are also new vices and virtues as well as ancillary characters for generals’ retinues.

Rebellions - can now flare up into full-fledged civil wars. Your generals can decide that they would make better kings or emperors than the current rulers and take matters into their own hands!

And goodbye to the Senate! That old favourite enemy of Rome: Total War players everywhere is now a toothless talking shop with no power over the fate of the Empire. Instead: worry about the Huns!

[ScionTheWorm]

I'm falling for the BI features (not the units though)...

This is very relevant for our mod.
Religion - is now an important factor. Christianity has become the dominant religion of the Empire, but it’s your choice whether or not to revert to paganism in the hope that this will bring victory. Barbarian factions can convert, opening up new parts of the technology tree in the process.

Besides, we wouldn't be one of many if doing such, we would be one of few concentrating on BI...

Btw I believe we've only done work which won't be wasted if the choice was BI?

[skeletor]

I voted for BI, but i think we should have one version for both.

Why? - There are alot of pople who don't plan to buy BI, so it would be great having a mod for them too. With the unit's and map done, along with the stats, the imlementation in the game isn't too mutch work i guess.
(I only hope BI uses the same peremeters for the graphics as RTW does. It wold be a pain doing it all over.)

Anyway, it seems like the modification in the BI engine suits the mod bether then that if RTW, and i guess most of the fans plan to buy it. I allso think BI will allow alot more modding. CA wold probably not allow too mutch modding before BI came out, to increase their sales. After BI, the mod's wont be any cometition anymore...

-Skel-

[oj121]

I voted BI. If you transfer your energy to that you guys will become a leading mod for BI plus it has loads on new tweeks that are extremely relivant to you era. Go for it and rule the mods.

[King Ragnar]

Yes BI, the shield wall will be very improtant, and also religion will play a big factor.

[xemitg]

Yes BI, the shield wall will be very improtant, and also religion will play a big factor.

we can only hope

[Incongruous]

Looking good so far Scion, everyone seems to like the idea of releasing the MOD for BI, so should we do it?

[ScionTheWorm]

we should just keep going as usual, haven't gotten into any relevant work with that yet. It would be wrong not waiting for legio regarding this big decision, so I guess we'll just wait. have a good feeling though...

[GoreBag]

Well, BI will probably not be that great...but then, VI was way more fun than MTW, I thought..

My opinion is that the single-player mod should be developed for BI, but things like models, skins, tech trees and all that can be developed with RTW, since they'll be used anyway. Go with BI, but there's still some time to do other things before it comes out.

[ScionTheWorm]

Well, BI will probably not be that great...but then, VI was way more fun than MTW, I thought..

My opinion is that the single-player mod should be developed for BI, but things like models, skins, tech trees and all that can be developed with RTW, since they'll be used anyway. Go with BI, but there's still some time to do other things before it comes out.

Yes we'll keep on making the graphics and units, BI is only opening up for some new sp features, and maybe some in battle we don't know of yet.

So what's going on regardless of RTW or BI is
skinning/modelling
research
misc graphics

Besides, I think BI may have some more AGE-OF-VIKINGS-AND-FANATICS-TOTAL-WAR-friendly voices for us to use.

[GoreBag]

Besides, I think BI may have some more AGE-OF-VIKINGS-AND-FANATICS-TOTAL-WAR-friendly voices for us to use.

I could help with voices, if I can actually find the time to get it all done..I'm supposed to help with EB's voices...

In all seriousness, though, borrowing from BI should be kept to a minimum.

[Incongruous]

That would be great if you could find the time to do some voice modding.
But then again, I beleive doing the Magyars will be next to impossible, same possibly with the Vikings

[skeletor]

The Viking voices it's actually not that hard. Some ancient Norce is still obligatory in norwegian schools, so most Norwegian teachers must master it. Allso in Islandic language, the pronouncement's is very cimilar to ancient Norse, so finding an Islandic, or a Norwegianteacher wold be ideal.

All of Scandinavia allso spoke the same language, so one mod could be used for all 4 factions.

-Skel-

[ScionTheWorm]

The Viking voices it's actually not that hard. Some ancient Norce is still obligatory in norwegian schools, so most Norwegian teachers must master it. Allso in Islandic language, the pronouncement's is very cimilar to ancient Norse, so finding an Islandic, or a Norwegianteacher wold be ideal.

All of Scandinavia allso spoke the same language, so one mod could be used for all 4 factions.

-Skel-

My thoughts exactly. I could do it, but my voice does not qualify. An Islandic would be perfect, he could just try to speak norwegian so it became something in the middle

[Steppe Merc]

I probably won't buy BI, unless the mod I'm working on will convert.

But you all should just be wary of any claims of features that CA have, since it will probaby won't work like you assume it will. Also, it might have less factions...

[soibean]

I think alot of people will buy BI because, dont quote me on this but, alot of the hardcoding will be removed so modding will be easier. In addition to this I think it is more realistic with all of those new features and units for your mod. I really do like the Barbarian horde idea.

[ScionTheWorm]

I also like the horde idea, but actually I can't see where we're going to use it..? for who? anyone?

[Incongruous]

It definatley needs to be used on the Magyars and Bulgars.

[Duncan_Hardy]

Given how important religion is in your mod, I think a pre-existing religion system would make your lives a lot easier. Go for BI. But try to make your own skins/voices etc. if you can (like EB are doing) because something tells me CA's won't be terribly historically accurate...

[Incongruous]

something tells me CA's won't be terribly historically accurate...

True dat.
We are doing our skins and moddels, and meybe our own voice MOD.

[Duncan_Hardy]

Do you have a microphone? If yes, it's easy enough to record your own speech samples (the accent doesn't have to be perfect ).

[Incongruous]

What kind of mic do you need.
Where can you get one.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Hm, it looks like a majority wants this one adapted to BI... That's a little sad, because I'm not sure I'm that impressed by BI... I'll have to think this over

[Steppe Merc]

My best advice is to make no desicion until BI is out. Chances are, the only good additions (religion + factions that aren't forced to always have a settlement), will be done poorly.

[ScionTheWorm]

faction LIMIT in BI is 17. That's the max. Less than RTW.

I wonder if we could use BI features in RTW-style campaign. Could we?

[skeletor]

I guess, if you in the prologue can change betwen RTW and BI (like MTW and VI) the new features will be avalable for modding in both versions. It's not a new game, just an expantion, and i guess/hope it's only addons to the RTW engine, that can be implemented for both.

-Skel-

[QuickDagger]

I believe BI just because it will be more complete. However, working on tech-trees, city plans, textures, 3d models, some stats, etc, will work for both anyway !

[Randarkmaan]

faction LIMIT in BI is 17. That's the max. Less than RTW.

I think barbarian invasion is an addon not a mod, and I am pretty sure, even though most of you have way too low expectations for it, that it will increase the faction limit by 17 not reduce it by 3. And I don't think it's that hard to have religion sysytem as what CA has described it as is pretty similar to the one in MTW and it was pretty good. I say use BI, I think most mods should because it does give them alot more to work with.

[skeletor]

Here are some more screens for BI: http://www.totalwar.org.pl/?ShowGal=23

After seeing a cuple of things, it doesn't look like the new formations is all that great. The shieldwall is portrayed with shields overlapping, but no spears poiting out (1st, pic 6)

(good thing for us, the BI skins really suck )

There are allso a few features that needs to be modded away, see here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...90&page=1&pp=20

Sparkles around unit's that gain experience, allso someone mentioned a voice saying "level up". Berserkers make bunches of men flying in the air during their "special attack".

If you can't turn this things off in preferences, we must find a way to mod it away.

The nightbattles, and swiming units looks ok.

-Skel-

[ScionTheWorm]

if we could in theory add 17 factions, I think it would be cool to have some minor factions reducing the number of rebel provinces. for instance the finnish, and some russian ones. doesn't have to be playable, and maybe a unique unit each which can be hired by the player as mercenarys.

edit:
I think we could relatively easily mod the shieldwall animation, though animations is sort of second priority.