Htw Spin-off Mod - Ancient: TW

[macsen rufus]

For the castles, I intend to import all the HTW maps - at the moment it still has the XL maps throughout -- which leaves the great situation of 200 club-wielding nutters trying to hammer down the doors of a full-blown mediaeval castle with ballista towers If all goes well I'd like to make some hillfort maps for the western european factions, as that will be mostly terrain rather than models involved, lots of ramps and ditches and stockades.

I know the whole map import thing will be quite a big job, as it will require me to go carefully through all the province info in the startpos file, make sure I have maps for all the terrain types etc. Yup, that's right, I'm procrastinating on that one More of a job for a weekend than an evening, I think.

Any new units will depend on what I can make from existing ones by moving shields and weapons around - but that still gives quite some scope. The pre-existing HTW RAM will be fine for the Assyrian one.

As for unit bifs, there are quite a few spares left yet - some of the animations will not be used in BA (oxivolos and eutythonon, for example) and some are duplicated - the bodies of the tribal warriors exist in two animations, so that means I can extract my slingers from the bif which has bronze weapons, and free up the other copy which has iron weapons.

It's going to be difficult to make the european barbarian factions distinct from each other - okay, so the Germanics have no chariots and their BG units are the axemen - but most of them will have the basic tribal warriors (clubs), archers, spears and axes, plus the slingers which everyone gets. So some faction-specific "specials" will be needed. I was thinking along the lines of small "berserker" type units, hunters that can hide in the open and have better bows, and possibly some sort of "noble" unit that can also be a chariot dismount. Javelin throwers also seem desirable. And in due course there will be swordsmen available, which can vary between factions (eg Celtic units with Naue swords, Germanics with longswords maybe....)

[Pericles]

macsen rufus:

Excellent work so far :)

You're progressing at a quick pace....

I also love playing ancient empire games such as HTW.

BTW, it would be great to see Babylon and Persia in the mod. Babylon especially fits the time period, and if you have Early, High, Late, periods, then perhaps Persia could be fit in.

Cheers!

[Pericles]

Lots of pictures about ancient Egypt you might find useful:

http://images.google.ca/images?q=anc...mages&ct=title

http://classroomclipart.com/cgi-bin/.../Ancient_Egypt

http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/gods/explore/main.html

[macsen rufus]

Hi Pericles,

thanks for the links, I'll go and have a little snoop around shortly

It definitely sounds like we need a map for further east, seems there's a lot of interest in Babylonia! For now I think Assyria is the eastern limit with the XL map (at least it has Mesopotamia on it )

Slightly less progress last night, I got kind of caught up with playing the Germanics, and trying a couple of ideas. For the western barbarian factions I've added in three levels of livestock farming (Domesticated boars, Cattle herd, and Cattle Breeder) currently with "cathedral income" as I don't know yet if two sets of buildings with farm income will work, and depending on the other farm upgrades. In time this will extend into the rest of the tech tree, such as leatherworker (needed to make shields and harnesses etc), so the barbarians go through a longer tech-up process, and also to make up for not having the same sort of farmland as found in the fertile crescent. Farm levels and resources are yet to be tweaked, currently I have no resources or trade goods on the map, and farming is at default XL values. Genrally the economy overall will need a complete overhaul, as I have the very cheap HTW units and buildings on quite a high-income map, but for now, whilst I'm testing, quick and easy building is a useful tool...

I'm off to do some research, lunch break is nearly over

[cegorach]

I would be careful with cathedral income buildings. Too many cause CTD when checking for province's income.
I don't know how many, but I suggest to pack the maximum number of thos you want to add and check for yourself.
Perhaps it is a good idea to keep some of those unique this way they will not appear all together in one place.


I had a look in my Osprey books from ancient period and made a caouple of notes.

So I might have some suggestions for usnits.

Egypt

a number of infantry used throwing sticks so perhaps a kind of skirmishing infantry with this weapon can be added - something like darts in VI I guess ( Ethipian army later used similar weapons with special sharpened boomerangs and many-edged knives).

Makhtu-aa close combat infantry might have two versions :
one - assault infantry without missiles,
two - same, but with throwing spears/javelins - but this one only allowed by 'dismounting' the first one, AI doesn't dismount units and it cannot use javelins properly anyway so recruitable shock infantry with throwing weapons would be wasted by it.

Stave bows - were cheaper and more popular + better in rainy weather conditions and were used by infantry together with later and more expensive composite bows.
Perhaps two types of archers to show it ?

Chariot runners - in my opinion a MUST in the mod.

Two versions with bows and javelins - perhaps only one recruitable and another 'dismountable' only ?
Were used to destroy enemy chariots and support egyptian ones so are perfect to cause fear in enemy chariotry without similar fears themselves. Could receive a charge and destroy the vehicles, though not without losses.
Should be very fast (for infantry)

Mittanian auxilia - Mariyannu hevavy, noble chariots with armoured crews and horses were used by egyptians too as allies after numerous conflicts with their state.

Chariots

Apparently heavier chariots appeared later after wars with Mitanni.
Remained quite light, but got some armour and got faster thanks to better use of horses.


Assyrians


3 levels of army.


Levies called Sab Sharry - peasant infantry archers, spearmen, slingers and shild bearers to protect archers.
Auxilia - cheap cannon fodder.
Bad or no armour + shields.

Kisir Sharruti - reformed army ( around 900 BC).

It included chariots and (later) cavalry).
Infantry was called Zuku sa sheppe - as the levies divided into all 4 infantry types.
Certainly armoured.

Royal guards -Qurubti sha shepe - all types of infantry and cavalry/chariots.
All armoured, but not havily. Disciplined elite of the army.




Assyrian chariots and cavalry.

According to the osprey about Assyrians cavalry started as either horse archers or lance armed support.

Both would act separately as different units.

Later they merged, got a little more armour and their steeds got some protection from cloth half-barding - a kind of extended cloth under the saddle and protecting steed's chest.

Something like a mini-skirt for a horse without protection over the head.


So the final Assyrian cavalry would be a hybrid lancer/archer.

As usual it might cause problems for the AI so perhaps it should be recrutable as light lancers with little arrows with dismountable version with larger number of arrows too ?


Assyrian chariots - simple heavy (getting heavier as the time passed) line breaker with archers aboard.



Overall I would propose the following roster

Sab Sharry - peasant infantry archers, spearmen, slingers and shield bearers to protect archers.


shield bearers either separate or in the same units as archers to give them some ranged protection.



Kisir Sharruti - reformed army

the core of the army - all infantry types, includes cavalry when it appears with reformed version in 'mini-skirt' in the last era ( 700 BC).

Perhaps should have chariots too ?


Royal guards -Qurubti sha shepe

guard infantry so harder to get ( maybe only in the royal court so unique building in one province ?)

Chariots for sure.

Cavalry for sure.

Some infantry too, but maybe without all choices.


I hope you will make the rosters ore diverse - the information might help.


Remember you can use 256 units and it DOESN'T include mounts, agents and ships.

[macsen rufus]

Some useful ideas, cegorach, thanks I keep on seeing references to Osprey books -- think I might as well invest in some myself...

Couple of questions for you: chariot-runners sounds good - any idea what melee weapons? I guess spears but that's just a guess! I haven't implemented the "feared units" yet, but I like your suggestions about chariots (I think that's something I'll do when I have a full unit roster).

I'm not ready to do it quite yet, but I will need to look at the Steppes eventually (I'm still reading up on early history of horse riding) and think I might like to use some of your steppe cavalry animations etc from PMTW (nogay asker, budiak asker etc) if that's okay? There's a lot of "rebel grey" up there at the moment, so I need to set up appropriate units and possibly factions - obviously in later periods I'll put in the Scyths, but for the early era I'm not quite sure yet...

Meanwhile:

New unit -- tribal swordsmen - taking on a few axemen:



The first level of barbarian livestock farming:



More at lunchtime...

...

... I've added more offices for the Egyptians - basically using four levels of temple (Set, Ra, Ptah and Amun) to give office titles to the "Leader of (insert god) Division", and tieing in the morale upgrades and happiness bonuses. As these are unique, they'll only ever be built in Egypt, so foreign-raised troops will always have lower morale (max +1 morale from Shrines in foreign provinces).

I've succesfully moved the slingers into the new animation, so now there's a "spare" animation folder.

The unit roster will grow as research allows, and of course era divisions will be implemented. Meanwhile, I'm concentrating on early era. I also have a spare culture as yet, as none of the factions have been labelled "orthodox" - I might use this for the non-Indo-europeans in western Europe (Iberians, Etruscans and "Atlantic" culture areas, incuding British Isles, as rebels or possibly new factions).

I think that's all for today, cheers

[cegorach]

Some useful ideas, cegorach, thanks I keep on seeing references to Osprey books -- think I might as well invest in some myself...

They are very useful, though when doing some more in-depth research I discovered much more mistakes than I assumed in the beginning.

Still 'if there is no fish even a lobster is a fish' - old polish saying

Couple of questions for you: chariot-runners sounds good - any idea what melee weapons?

Spears were too large I think, so daggers of some sort are better. These guys eliminated horses and later dispatched immobilised crews alone or already crippled by their chariot mounted 'cousins'.

I might like to use some of your steppe cavalry animations etc from PMTW (nogay asker, budiak asker etc) if that's okay?

If you like it is not a problem.




ONE note I found that Egyptians used small units of cavalry as scouts so maybe little regiments of very fast horsemen can be added too ?

I guess 12 men units are all you will need - and of course available only from later periods.