Org Gah-zette: Issue 1

**Samurai Waki** · 03-26-2006, 05:58

Just wait until Ian posts my Report...its about as long as the entire first issue

**Ianofsmeg16** · 03-26-2006, 10:49

Wakizashi's Mod Report! (he wasn't lying about the Length

)

The Mod Report
Article One: Wakizashi-San

It is a great pleasure to be a part of the first official .Org Newsletter, and my interest in the Total War genre has lead me to meet some very interesting people, have a few laughs, but most important, talk about the games themselves. I am currently twenty-one years old, living in what one could call squalor, in my apartment between Santa Barbara and North West LA, and am attending College at UCLA (majoring in Business & Economics and Minoring in Corporate Law), whilst also holding a full time job as an assistant manager...in training, at a local bank. While these two things keep me rather busy, often times, during a slow evening or in between paper work, I find myself browsing Totalwar.org.

When Ian announced the possibility of a newsletter for the .Org, I was rather ecstatic and realized this would be one of the few opportunites I would get to not only contribute something to the .Org, but also to let the greater community of Orgites realize the largest reason for why I keep on playing CA's venerable Strategic Games. This reason, of course, is mods, and although there were few in the way of Shogun: Total War, when Medieval was released they came in greater numbers, and some of those mods I still play to this day such as Viking's: Total War XL and Blind King of Bohemia's: Super Mod.

With the advent of Rome: Total War, the modding community has literally flourished, even with little support from CA itself. What some thought impossible, others have proven wrong, The Europa Barbarorum Team, Zang Guo Mod, and Napoleonic 2 Mod are but a few that have changed the game in everything, but it's engine.

This brings me to my next section, which I am proud to contribute, both as a way of supporting the many hardworking modders that have made an impact on the community, and to give the community an awareness to the many mods available. The mod I am now about to present is one that has been around since almost the beginning of the Rome: Total War back in October/November 2004, and although it is only a mini-mod, has had a great impact on a very large amount of mods either released or currently in development. I am proud to announce...

Wakizashi's Mod of the Week

Darth_Mod 7.0

To my knowledge, after the defeat of the Empire in the Galactic Civil War, Darth Vader revealed that Luke Skywalker was his son, and died, then his body was burnt to a crisp after the mighty Death Star was destroyed in a fiery explosion.

What the movies didn't reveal, was that Darth Vader in fact lived; and thereon, the story continues...just a tad more boringly. He landed in Athens, Greece and began the menial task of modding a game known as Rome: Total War.

What makes Darth_Mod special in my view, is that it did something that changed the complexity of Rome: Total War entirely, it gave the game new formations, and while this may sound insignificant, it in fact changed the way battles should be fought. After first playing Darth_Mod gone were the days of generals charging into a line a Triarii while his host was still half a battle map away, no longer could I round up a group of hastati and blindly throw them into a Phalanx formation and expect to win every single time. The mod gives battles something they should have had all along, and that is a challenge, to use one's head, far be it for me to say that CA had the right idea in making all generals akin to Rambo and Eulysses S. Grant, but I'd rather be fighting generals that had at least some sense in their heads, and Darth's Formations do that, and more.

However, Darth_Vader has not only released a standalone version, but a total conversion mod as well that adds A TON of new stuff to the game!

Here are is a pretty good some up of what Darth has added to the game in his own words:

-New Darth_Map (Modification of existing Vanilla map)
Re-distribution of all starting faction provinces to provide historical and gameplay correction of challenge. AI campaign has been balanced to provide the best gameplay possible. The vanilla map is a good map if triggered correctly.
Also new vegetation settings for more thick forests and more opportunities for AI ambushes. Barbarian lands will now be very difficult to invade.

-Created variable winning AI conditions through heavy modding of diplomacy settings and AI winning conditions. Not done before in such extent and this has created a tremendous pressing and clever AI campaign faction thinking.

-Created scripts for Gaul and Parthia to re-emerge if they are won in start of game and when rebellions occur in their prior lands.(Have to beta test this how it works in very late turns but generally no CTDs occurred

-Created forced naval invasions for many factions that create an unbelievable campaign challenge. Watch greeks really unite with Macedonians and have an obsession to conquer Sicely and even throw away Romans from the island. Carthage to be competitive and maintain her lands while Scipii have to win several fronts to survive. Generally each faction gets powerful enough to create powerful balanced armies for the human player to challenge with the new Darth Settings of Battle gameplay .

-Inserted pictures for the Darth custom battle maps (Thanks RTR team for creating them!)

-Created compatibility for the mod to be used for any music mod without erasing events.dat file.(Also provide certain optional setting for those who use Lite Music mod and it is copied in the root directory of the game to be used freely when needed ONLY if you use lite music mod)

-Inserted images for the new map settings for each faction

-New Darth_Total_formations_12.0. The formations seen in 6.8 are nothing compared to what you will witness now. Managed to find ways to play with hard coded CA hidden commands. Now you will see new AI tactics and style of play for each historic formation. The Hellenic formations will use phalanxes with cohesion and discipline and not phalanx/unphalanx all the time. Romans will use maneuverability in an unparalleled way (maniples will stretch, combine, flank according to circumstances), Barbarians will storm with ferocious charges, Asian armies will use with efficiency horse archery and Carthage will cunningly flank and deceive any human army.
But not only this. Darthmod 7.0 uses new settings and replaces loose formation for units to be called “protective formation”. Units with high shielding will use this by default (such as Romans) and other will swap between modes. Of course the lightly armed units will use the normal loose formations. This works for human to have in mind that protection will be better according to units strengths and weaknesses. This will be valid only with internal Darth_Total_Formations_12 . The Stand alone version that will be released will not use this option for combatibility with other mods. So you must use only the internal formations for best effects.
Also bridge and siege tactics are now much different and now AI bridge defense is a real challenge.

-Modded the Day phasing and also the light and weather effects for the best and most realistic visuals. Nights will be realistic. Many battles will start with fog to clear out in the middle or rain may come in the midst of battle. Also long battles will cause the day to darken as to reflect the actual length of battle.

-Corrected projectile trajectories for more realistic effects and actually more effective AI use of missiles

-Removed boiling oil to help the AI in sieges (Found that in the totalwar.org but never managed to find again who wrote it to give credits….thanks anyway. A real puzzle to me how to do it till now.

-Used settings for realistic vegetations of OrrieBoi. Thanks a real help to me.(Did not use the grass settings because it caused lag) http://forums.rometotalrealism.org//...ic=11764&st=0#

-Made available the Vassal_beta_4. For those who do not know it is an optional way of playing RTW by creating superfactions with vassals that honour alliances and thus create powerful AI armies for human player to defeat. In this version I have corrected the early internal roman conflict(And the senate obsession against Scipii). The alliances will be powerful and the only thing that may be a problem is that the superfactions will rarely expand but will use their vassals to wage their wars. But this creates stable powers that human player will have great difficulty to defeat.
There is an extra folder that will be copied to root directory of RTW called “Vassal_beta_4”. If you open it and copy the content inside DATA folder you will replace data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\ descr_strat and data\sm_factions (back it up if you do not want to lose default darthmod settings).

-Many gameplay new settings for example Roman units are set to reflect their true historical way of fighting based on good shielding protection and infliction of critical hits that made them able to beat even stronger opponents. They are set in a very delicate unique way but are not overpowered. Their superiority is shown in the battlefield though. The unit stats are different in a way that the Roman superior weapons and training are reflected. (They push and disupt any formation with combinations of pila, withstand with cohesion the attacks and inflict critical hits)
Greeks are fighting with discipline and impenetrable spear walls….no more to say….the DarthMod battlefield gameplay is something that is unique and the best to witness for a RTW player.

-Mass settings are creating real effects of charge penetrations, cavalry swarms, dead horse bodies are falling to disrupt infantry formations, Elephants are keeping infantry at a distance in a way that the battlefield feels alive and violent.

-Also night battles are enabled thanks to excellent tutorial of DimeBagHo
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=41936

The real perk to enjoying Darth_Mod 7.0 is that it includes Formations unique only to the total conversion.

See how Pretty these Formations Look!

I would not like to charge my Cavalry into that...

Unfortunately for this issue, no interview took place, however, in the future you can expect some pretty hard questions to be asked, and see what the Mods have to answer!

So Gentleman, now that you've seen the mod... now you should play it! Darth has been so kind to release both a standalone version, and a total conversion. which you can download here!

http://rapidshare.de/files/13556890/...d_6.8.zip.html (Standalone version...)
http://files.filefront.com/Quick_Dar.../fileinfo.html (6.8-6.9 Patch)

and of course the highlight-

http://files.filefront.com/DarthMod_.../fileinfo.html (Darth Mod 7.0)

Also you can check out progress and updates on the mod, which thankfully Darth_Vader works tirelessly on here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=61418
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forum...9801b7 5&f=71

Also, to check out other mods in progress, or that have been released check out the Forge
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=76

The Mod Discussion-
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=119

and for you MTW Fans
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=40

And remember, when you see a modder give him a firm handshake (or hug) for making your day just a little less cold and cloudy.

Have a good week Gentleman!
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Thank you Wakizashi-san for a great article on an awesome mod.
Hope you enjoyed it ladies and gentlemen, once again I apologise for the wait

**The_Doctor** · 03-26-2006, 10:57

Great work team.

**Monarch** · 03-26-2006, 11:21

Very nice. As much as I'd like to rip into your multiplayer section Tib...I have to admit you did a great job on it :D Though as you asked for a suggestion or two (guess I could xfire you this...but since i'm typing :P) I think some links would be cool to these tournaments :) Oh and perhaps give a mention to Vandal Horde's Vandalism tournament :D

Very nice other areas too Ian :)