ChivalryTW Early Era RELEASED + MP Screenshots
the Chivalry TW Early Era MP mod brings the early middle ages to Rome Total war, making tons of brandnew units and factions available in Multiplayer and Custom Battle. This version does NOT include a campaignmap, and it mainly ment to be played in Multiplayer.
MOD DOWNLOAD:
MIRROR:
use this if the other links dont work
http://downloads.troytw.com
download the mod here:
click to download
Download patch 0.27b here:
click to download
it adds new units & fixes a couple of (balance) issues
TRAILER DOWNLOAD:
Irish Fenian made a very nice Trailer Movie for the mod. It shows a battle between Novgorod and the Mongol Horse. You can download it here:
click to download
SCREENSHOTS:
all of these screenshots were taken from Multiplayer games:
Screenshots Gallery
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:
-Make sure you have a CLEAN RTW 1.2 FOLDER - NO OTHER MODS INSTALLED
-download the Chivalry TW mod
-Extract the file in the RTW ROOT DIRECTORY (winrar is required, can be downloaded for free on rarlab.com)
-doubleclick the executable in the RTW root folder to start the mod (or a shortcut to it).
The mod features:
-over 60 playable units, all carefully balanced in series of Mp and SP tests
-19 playable factions, each with unique units and fighting styles
-dozens of new custom maps, ranging from flat forested maps to hilly inlands
-redesigned gameplay, combining the tactical possibilities of MTW with the more flexible and varied units of RTW.
-2 Historical battles: Hastings and Kayala River. These scenarios are rather simplistic, but should be a nice extra for singleplayer.
WARNING: it appears the Hastings battle is broken. We will fix this in a small patch very soon. Perhaps including other (usermade ?) battles.
gameplay improvements over RTW vanilla:
-reduced battle pace: RTW did not take scale into account. Soldiers may run at realistic individual speeds, but TW battles are supposed to represent real historical battles, which involved (tens of)thousands of troops, not a couple of hundred. Therefor things such as movement speed and killspeed need to be scaled down. Chivalry TW reduced the movement speed by about 15% (and more on difficult terrain types) and seriously decreases killing speed, thereby allowing for much more stategical manouvering, and taking away the "rushy" feeling of RTW. It also makes unit positioning invaluable because it is nolonger possible to "warp" units from one flank of your army to the other. If your left flank cavalry is wavering, dont expect your right flank to get there in a second and save the day.
-rebalanced unit speeds: cavalry can catch foot units easier - no more chasing foot archers across half the map with light cavalry. There are multiple "classes" of speed for both cavalry and infantry, ranging from light (fastest) to very heavy (slowest, very heavily armoured). This makes light units have a better advantage over slower but tougher units in the right circumstances, allowing light - but much for flexible armies - to stand a chance and have their own unique strategies. RTW only had 2 different speeds for both cavalry and infantry (fast and normal).
-effective kill speed reduction: The mod's technique of killspeed reduction does not rely on huge defence values like some other mods, therefor it does not have the problem of units with invulnerable frontside and sugar backsides, or needing insanely high charge and projectile attack values (the weakest archers have "1" missile attack). The much lower stats also allow unit upgrades to be much more usefull, which brings me to the next point:
-upgrades are valuable: like in MTW, (most) units need experience upgrades ("valor") in order to become reliable. Most - non-elite - units will not be capable of holding a line very long on v0. Weapon and Armour upgrades are more effective for raw fighting results, but they do not give the advantage of a more stable morale.
-more realistic morale, units will waver and break when badly outnumbered, outflanked or even just threathened in their back. Only upgraded elite units (2 or 3 experience upgrades) can hold their own against all odds, but those units are rare and expensive.
-unit types balance revised: archers are nolonger the long range killing machines from RTW. The cheapest archers will inflict casualties when firing at armoured and shielded opponents, but it will not be cost effective. However that does not mean that they cannot be a pain in the butt or seriously hurt morale when used in large numbers. And they are much more effective against lightly armoured opponents. "Elite" archers with armour piercing arrows or bolts will be able to hurt even the heaviest units, but they will still be vulnerable to light - and much cheaper - archers, meaning they will not make you win the game without some use of skill. Cavalry is a deadly tool, but one that needs to be used with skill. Cavalry will not be able to push through infantry formations the way they can in RTW, therefor massing them into a big bunch will make them sitting ducks to archers and easily surroundable. Only the almightly "Chivalric" knights of the high and late eras will have devastating charge values, but that will come at a high cost - and these units are not available in the current early era mod. Therefor infantry becomes the most important trooptype of every army (with some exceptions such as the Cuman/Mongols).
-manually balanced unit statistics: The mod's unit balance has been revised completly for over 4 times (thanks to Buukenshin for his endless whining and redoing of statistics ;)) to ensure near perfect balance and combat results. I cannot garantee that there are no overpowered units, but each class and type of units has their own advantages or disadvantages which can be used in favor or against them. Most unit's were manually balanced in series of 1 on 1 unit tests (which can become very boring, but does give you a very good impression of what all those magic numbers do ;))
-sharper unit sprites: perhaps not very important but it makes it a that bit easier to recognise units from a large distance then with the blurred sprites in RTW vanilla.
-no sacrifises whatsoever to MP in order to garantee a better SP experience - more likely the other way round. Also, reported balance problems will be investigated and fixed with a patch faster then CA could ever dream about ;)
-no artillery - or any other plain annoying units :D
What future may bring:
Provided the Early Era mod will turn out to be a succes, development will continue.
-High Era units will be added to the mod, including mightly chivalric knights and pavise crossbowmen. To make a distinction between the eras, units will have an [E], [H] or [L] behind their name to indicate what era they are from. That way players can decide to only use units from specific eras.
-Medieval castles available for siege games. The idea is to make them much more fair and popular then in MTW in multiplayer games. For example towers will not fire at opponents. If you want something that shoots at opponents you'll need to place archers on the walls. Castles will also be much smaller then RTW cities, making it easier to attack from all sides. Catapults should also be effective to thin out the garrison before attack.
-A fully functional SP campaign, if only to attract more potential multiplayers
-eventualy Late Era units may be added, such as gothic knights and pikemen and early gunpowder units.
Notes:
-the mod is best played on large or huge unit sizes. Smaller sized should still work fine, but will make the gameplay different (due to small scale)
-Suggested Florin amounts are 10k for games with valor and weapon upgrades, and 6k for unupgraded units. Higher then 10k will make cheaper/weaker units obsolete and is therefor not advised.
-a preferences.txt file is included (called OPTIMALpreferences.txt) for optimal settings: this includes GameSpy ID's, Quickchat and Minimal GUI. You may need to redo your Video and Audio settings if you choose to use this file.
-playing with a "4 max" rule will result in a more enjoyable experience, altho it should not be necessary for balance concerns.
Mod team:
Head Programmer & Designer
- Lukas "Adherbal" Nijsten
Design & Management
- BuuKenshin
- Andriyko
- Dirty Peasant
- Miguel "VikingHorde" Kristensen
- Ninjacool
Skinning & Modelling
- Andriyko
- Dirty Peasant
- Adherbal
Balance & Beta-Testing
- BuuKenshin
- Alexandros
- AggonyDuck
- Crow
- Antek
- Tom
- Jhonny
Historical Advice & Research
- Carlos "Adelwulfs" de Lorenzo
- Karl "Anti Strunt" Thomasson
- Armchair Athlete
- Hasasharin
- Mikel
- WrathOfMe
- Urnamma
- Russ Mitchell
- janosik007
- galizien
- Adahn
Webmaster
- Ninjacool
Special Thanks
- Strategic Command Center - for forum and mod hosting
- Vercingetorix - for his awesome modding tools
Website
- http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/chivalry/
Forum
- http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/forums/i...hp?showforum=40
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