Vanilla Balance Mod v4 for Rome: Total War and BI

[Barbarossa82]

Here you can download Vanilla Balance Mod B.I. Extension v2.0, which applies some of the VBM changes to B. I. See the readme document below for features and details.
Note: This micro-mod requires BI 1.6, and for Vanilla Balance Mod v4 to already be installed for the Imperial Campaign

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=====VANILLA BALANCE MOD B.I. EXTENSION V2.0 README=====
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by Barbarossa82


CONTENTS
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1 - Introduction
2 - Principal Changes From v1.0
3 - List Of Changes To Vanilla BI
4 - Requirements/Compatibility
5 - Installation Instructions
6 - Uninstallation Instructions
7 - Credits


1. INTRODUCTION
=========================
Vanilla Balance Mod BI Extension v2.0 ("VBM-BIX") is a micro-mod which extends certain features of Vanilla Balance Mod v4 to Barbarian Invasion, the expansion pack for Sega/Creative Assembly's Rome: Total War. It also makes some very small modifications to BI to increase completion and improve gameplay balance.
Because BI in general is a much better balanced game than the Imperial Campaign in RTW, the changes required are smaller. The dynamics of the period (large but fragile Roman empires, small but powerful Barbarian states) are well reflected already in BI and are not altered by VBM-BIX. What VBM-BIX does is to add certain aesthetic/completion/atmosphere elements from VBM v4 into BI, and to make some minor changes to trait awards. See below for a full list.
VBM-BIX is designed to be used by people already using Vanilla Balance Mod v4 for the Imperial Campaign.


2. PRINCIPAL CHANGES FROM v1.0
=========================
* Greatly improved installer/uninstaller preserves and restores user's original files.
* Replaced poor-quality faction maps with ProfessorSpatula's excellent versions

* Added victory movies for factions which lacked them (uses vanilla imperial campaign movies from appropriate cultures)
* Added Roman Corvus Quinquiremes and Deceres

* Added Roman pagan pantheons

* Removed peasant handicap
* Removed government building law bonuses that were instituted by VBM-BIX 1.0, as they were impeding the cool Roman civil wars
* Added Sarmatian Auxilia/Scholae Palatinae rebalance
* Carried over extermination renaming from Vanilla Balance Mod v4 - extermination is now "suppression".


3. LIST OF CHANGES
=========================

FACTION CAMPAIGNS
* All non-emergent factions except the Rebels are now playable
* All factions have a campaign description, a leader pic, a victory movie, a faction selection screen map and an in-game victory conditions map. Credit to Professor Spatula for his superb maps.
* The Sassanid faction is now known as "the Persians", in accordance with usual historical practice in describing the Sassanid state. The term "Sassanid" is still to be found in a few places, like the faction selection screen and unit info scrolls. This is personal preference really, but I prefer to refer to the faction by the name of the nation, not its ruling dynasty.

EXTERMINATION
* Carried over the changes to extermination descriptions/graphics/traits from VBM v4. The huns still use the old "pile-o-skulls" graphic though, as they really did get up to that kind of thing.

ROMAN EMPIRE
* Both the Western and Eastern empires now have the ability to build Corvus Quinquieremes and Deceres from a Dockyard. These ships were already defined in the vanilla BI game, and the Eastern Empire even started off with a Corvus Quinqireme. However, there was no way to build them. Their cost has been slightly increased to compensate for their ready availability. Unit cards are provided - I actually made these before I figured out that there are no faction-specific naval unit cards in BI (lazy CA!), so they are a bonus.
* Both the Western and Eastern empires can now upgrade their pagan temples to Mithras and Sol Invictus to Pantheons in a Huge City, so there is not such a disadvantage to remaining Pagan. These have the same cost and build times as the pantheons from the Imperial Campaign, with appropriate bonuses. Building cards and building browser pics have been implemented. In addition, the pantheons can be seen on the battlemap. Don't know why this works, but it does!
* The Eastern Empire has lost the 5% happiness bonus it once got from its government buildings. I doubt this will have much effect, but the Eastern Roman Empire Rebels need all the help they can get.
* Stats of WRE's Sarmatian Auxilia and Scholae Palatinae tweaked so that SPs have higher attack and armour to reflect their higher cost and longer buildtime.

TOOLTIPS
* Carried over the traits tooltips descriptions changes from VBM v4 to BI.

TRAITS
* Some small adjustments have been made to traits to prevent factions being punished for success. Corruption traits now kick in at a higher treasury level, while Academy-line buildings are now more likely to provide positive traits, including the Good Administrator trait.

PERFECT SPY
* Added the "perfect spy" cheat/feature, as found in VBM v4. However in VBM-BIX, this is activated using the advisor at the Game Options screen (where you can choose save/load etc) rather than the Keyboard Shortcuts screen, as that doesn't appear to work.


3. REQUIREMENTS/COMPATIBILITY
=========================

VBM-BIX v2.0 requires the following:
* Original RTW patched to 1.5, with Vanilla Balance Mod v4 installed
* Barbarian Invasion expansion pack, patched to 1.6.
Basically if you have RTW, BI, the 1.6 patch and VBM 4 installed, you're good to go.

Like VBM v4, VBM-BIX is compatible with player1's BugFixer. This means if you install VBM-BIX, it will go straight over the top of BugFixer without damaging any of its changes and fixes, they will still be present in the campaign.
BugFixer is highly recommended for the best experience from VBM-BIX, but is not required. VBM-BIX will install fine over non-BugFixed BI. If you do choose to install BugFixer, then you MUST install or reinstall VBM-BIX AFTERWARDS.
VBM-BIX v2.0 has been tested with BugFixer 3.36. Earlier versions should work too but have not been tested.


4. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
=========================

Simply run the downloaded file and follow the onscreen instructions. Make sure to tell the installer the correct directory - it'll probably be different to the default if you have RTW Gold.


5. UNINSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
=========================
Run the program "VBM-BIXuninstall" program located in your Rome - Total War\BI directory. Your original files will be restored.

NB: Because BI and RTW are interlinked and rely on some of the same data, uninstalling one can affect the other. For this reason, uninstalling VBM v4 from the Imperial Campaign while leaving VBM-BIX v2 installed over BI will lead to the reversion of the extermination pics in BI to their original versions. To avoid any unforeseen weirdness, players with RTW Gold or BI should either have both VBM v4 and VBM-BIX v2 installed, or have them both uninstalled.


6. CREDITS
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Mod creator and programmer: Barbarossa82 of the totalwar.org forums
Faction selection screen and ingame maps: Professor Spatula
Creators of the original Rome - Total War and Barbarian Invasion: Creative Assembly
Source of info for faction descriptions: Wikipedia
BugFixer content incorporated by kind permission of player1


Download

Sorry, download has expired. New version planned. See below.