Reviving old mod idea - Medieval's Rome: Total War

[Kaidonni]

Okay...since my old thread died away in the Engineer's Guild, I thought I'd mention an old mod idea here...

Basically, I was going to start a mod called Medieval's Rome: Total War. However, it never really got off the ground - and like I said, the original thread vanished into obscurity...

I think it'd be a great idea to do this mod, and others thought the same. Of course, it's all about team work, because I alone couldn't complete the mod on my own. That is why I think forming a team to work on it would be great.

Now, since the days of the original idea (half a year ago...er, I meant about 2,300 years or so, give or take a century or two...LOL!), I've had time to think.

It'd use a new map, different from the original. It would encompass more land eastwards and, if possible, southwards too. Plus extra detail to the land on the map, making it more colourful (the original MTW seems rather drab to an extent, even though I still like it). I'm aware of 107 province limit, so that'd have to be sorted out. I prefer the idea of new artwork (none borrowed from other mods). Of course, all of this and more would be discussed and changed if a team could be formed.

One of the important things, though, are hardcodes.

Are there any hardcodes on building art? To have the same design for a building, but a bow and arrow symbol or a sword symbol...it seems rather minimalistic, and not too creative. Surely a trading post would look different to a brothel? LOL, hopefully you see what I mean.

Also, what about the fort designs on the map? Can they change according to if you build extra defences, or is it hardcoded not to? It'd be nice if, say you had a small town, it resembled that on the campaign map - and building some walls changed that.

What are the other possible hardcodes that would need to be taken into consideration?

I think this is a good threat to discuss anything and everything concerning the mod, including start and end dates, eras, etc.

[macsen rufus]

The simple answers for you:

* the reviewpanel graphics can be anything, so long as its a picture in valid BIF format and 68x50 pixels,
* the strategy map castles are BIF or BUF images in textures/campmap/pieces/buildings, and there are 5 or 6 "slots" available, depending on whether you're based around VI - in which case you can provide: stockade, fortified village, fort, keep, castle, citadel (and in vanilla possibly fort --> fortress?). The piece will change with castle level, but not the lesser upgrades. So long as you use the right filenames for the pieces, you could make them look like anything you like - if you want a pink fairy castle with a ring of rabbits around the moat, you could do it

[Kaidonni]

Thanks for the info. :)

May aswell ask some other questions too...

1. How are religions hardcoded? Can any of the symbols be changed and any of the religions renamed?
2. How are 'events' hardcoded (as in, the Magna Carta, discovery of a piece of the True Cross, etc)? It'd be really nice to have dialogue boxes appearing saying that Clear Glass can now be produced, etc. All those nice little things. And can effects be added in for these events if any mentioning of them can be achieved? The latter doesn't matter, it'd just be nice to be kept informed on discoveries, etc.

And of course, there are bound to be hardcodes I'm not even thinking about...

Any and all help on this is much appreciated.

I was thinking the Fort > Fortress line of buildings could go something like: Village (Fort) > Town (Keep) > Minor City (Castle) > Large City (Citadel) > Metropolis (Fortress). At least for the 'civilised' factions. The 'barbarian' factions would have a different list to that, with the inability to build up to a Large City or Metropolis. Plus, hopefully I'd be able to make the actual look of the settlements on the review panel unique to the faction culture (while they still all may have to look the same on the campaign map itself). I haven't mentioned any upgrades yet as those can wait.

EDIT: Noticed only 5 slots used above...so, it could instead use VI:
Village (Stockade) > Small Town (Fortified Village) > Large Town (Fort) > Minor City (Keep) > Large City (Castle) > Metropolis/Huge City (Citadel)

EDIT 2: This made me think...can the review panel version of, say, a Castle, look different to the piece used on the actual campaign map? Maybe the upgrades that appear in the review panel answer this as a yes, but I'd still like to ask and know for certain. This way, even though a Village might have a generic image on the campaign map, the actual building in the review panel could be different for, say, the Ptolemaic Egyptians, than it would Epirus (just names I'm throwing around at the moment - it'd be much more appealing to have historically accurate names).

EDIT 2a: That last edit made me think (dangerous topic, this! LOL! A moderator better lock it quickly, otherwise I might...actually get up off my butt and do something, too! I mean, it's already making me think, and who knows what irreparable damage that could cause civilisation! LOL! ). There clearly needs to be a line drawn between historical realism and gameplay, and I feel historical faction names might be good. I could get in touch with the people who make Europa Barbarum and the team working on RTR and ask if I could share their research. Same for faction symbols, too. And units, etc.

EDIT 2b: Are there hardcodes on the UI, or can a different one be made for, say, use with different factions?

EDIT 2c: The campaign map again...are there hardcodes on the size of it? Not in terms of provinces, this time around (darn 107 limit...LOL!). I mean...in pixels, etc?

EDIT 3: Ah! In looking at a list of ancient civilisations on Wikipedia...is it possible to create conditions for factions to emerge? In other words, can the Swiss, for example, be replaced as the Galatians, and then be made to appear at a certain date?

Thanks again.

[macsen rufus]

Quite a few of things there will hit hard-coding unfortunately, so in no particular order:

* I would avoid changing names of castles etc, as it can get a bit touchy with that building line. I did think of doing some interesting things myself, but the the CTD:progress ratio was very discouraging
* You can make separate reviewpanel graphics and infopics for different cultures, as the relevant folders can take culture sub-folders: eg campmap/reviewpanel/buildings/pagan, ....ings/muslim, ...ings/catholic etc. You won't be able to do this for individual factions though (but it would be SOOO nice if you could ) Though actually having said that, maybe I'll try a little envelope-pushing experiment -- to see if faction-name subfolders would work. Hey, what's the worst that could happen? A CTD, is all
* The review panel pics can look as much like the campmap pieces as you like, or not. All you need to do is get the image format right, it will still work. If you want to make a fortress look like a wedding cake, the game doesn't care, so long as it's the right number of pixels and colours involved.
* Another supposition - it may be possible to have different campmap pieces for castles according to culture, using sub-folders... will have to try that
* Events: by which I mean the historical events like gunpowder, various religious nutjobs, etc etc are totally and unalterably hard coded. These are the really hard hard-coded bits, and they are tied to game dates. You either take them as they come, or move to a different date range. As you're not in a mediaeval setting, just cut a thousand years off the start date, for instance and you'll avoid all the events. Random plagues and earthquakes etc are truly random and will still happen.
* Campmap needs a high and low-definition copy, at 4096x3072 and 2048x1536 respectively - although it may be possible to go smaller, I haven't tried pushing too far on this one, as campmaps are 's to debug.
* Factions emergences are also tied to dates and faction names, and can't be used reliably for mods.
* Cultures and religions are limited in number, but can be renamed, re-logoed etc.
* You can change the UI, but it will be the same for all factions, same goes for the front-end.


& now I've whetted your appetite, I'm going to have to go offline for the weekend, so any furth questions, I'm not ignoring, just not here. Good luck

[phred]

There was a Rome mod for MTW vanilla. It was called Patrician. You may find some useful ideas there. The modder (King David) hasn't been around here for years.

link to download
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/...d_6093031.html

[Kaidonni]

Okay, so far I have a number of ideas that I'd much like to implement:

-Religion is to be replaced by Culture, and it will be spread by buildings and owning a province (cultural assimilation). The generic terms I am using for the Cultures at the moment are: Roman, Hellenic, Egyptian, Barbarian, Eastern and Carthaginian. More historically accurate names are preferred, though. The use of agents in this is unknown.

-An entirely new campaign map, covering similar areas to that of Rome: Total War, but with the northern reaches of Europe still in (northern British Isles, Sweden, Norway...those places).

-Brand new art for the units and buildings, and a new UI in-game. Art for buildings will be arranged by Culture far more discriminately - the design for, sake of argument, an Archery Range, would be different for a Hellenic faction when compared to the Roman version (even just a change in the saturation of the colours - that's one way the Greek and Roman buildings differed in Rome: Total War - the Greek buildings seemed to have less saturated colours, or something like that).

-Campaign map pieces overhauled. A Roman army piece would differ from a Hellenic army piece, as would an Eastern army piece from an Egyptian army piece. Hopefully the settlements can be worked on the same - so a Barbarian settlement the same level as a Roman settlement will be represented by a different campaign map piece.

-Era system to be used to represent the evolution of the Roman army and the changing empires of the times.

-Historically accurate faction names and symbols, including accurate character names and unit/building names. As concerns the argument of gameplay Vs. realism, balancing can still be achieved without sacrificing the little details of historical realism. I mean, calling a faction the Greek City States is generic...how about a more accurate, cool-looking name? Adds far more atmosphere. A good balance between gameplay and realism is needed, although that concerns faction strengths, etc, rather than faction names, visuals, etc.

-Historical titles to represent the heirarchy of the Republic of Rome. From Aedile to Pontifex Maximus. And regional titles, too.

[christof139]

Quite a few of things there will hit hard-coding unfortunately, so in no particular order:

* I would avoid changing names of castles etc, as it can get a bit touchy with that building line. I did think of doing some interesting things myself, but the the CTD:progress ratio was very discouraging

* Another supposition - it may be possible to have different campmap pieces for castles according to culture, using sub-folders... will have to try that.

I did both of these things with the old and never finished Middle-earth TW mod.

For the campmap pieces it is simply a matter of making/modifying the pieces and using the correct name where necessary. I can't remember if they are BIFs, buffs, or LBM's, BiFs I think, but just can't rmember offhand and you know which one anyway.

Chris

[Kaidonni]

Okay, so far, I have some factions I'd like to involve, and the following are the generic names for them (I hope to get more historically accurate names for them at some point):

1 - The Republic of Rome
2 - The Greek City States
3 - The Kingdom of Macedonia
4 - The Kingdom of Epirus
5 - The Seleucid Empire
6 - The Ptolemaic Empire
7 - The Kingdom of Pontus
8 - The Kingdom of Armenia
9 - The Kingdom of Parthia
10 - Carthage
11 - Numidia
12 - Etruria
13 - Illyria (? Not certain about this one, but it might be doable - it's a matter of locating the regions - and a correct number of them - properly)
14 - Britannia
15 - Gaul
16 - Germania
17 - Iberia
18 - Dacia
19 - Thrace
20 - Scythia/Sarmatia
21 - The Kingdom of Phyrgia
22 - Galatia

Now, keep in mind, as I said above, those are generic names - or placeholder names - so we can all see where I'm coming from at the moment. It'd be a bit obscure at this point to name Dacia the Getae without first mentioning Dacia itself.

Keeping in mind, of course, that this still means less factions than XL, and there are probably others to mention in there too. Using the era system, the later eras could have different province layouts and factions, just like BKB's Supermod does for the Medieval era.

Even with the 107 province limit, the map should hopefully be workable across the area I want it to cover. Just the matter of locating the regions properly.

[Ludens]

For historical accurate faction names, you can have a look at the Europa Barbarorum modification. They've probably got the best research of any TW mod, and they've given every faction the name they called themselves in the classical age. So Rome becomes the S.P.Q.R.; the Seleucids become Arche Seleukeia; the Carthagians "Safot Softim biKarthadest", which apparently translates as "rule of the Softim in the New City (Kart-Hadast, Carthago)"; and so on. You won't find an accurate name for Gaul, though, since Gaul didn't exist except in the minds of the Romans. Dito for Britain, Germania, Iberia, etc.

[Kaidonni]

Just a general bit of research using Wikipedia (I hope I'm not shooting myself in the foot by starting with that )...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaul.

There could be three separate tribes for what I referred to as 'Gaul':
1) The Belgae
2) The Aquitani
3) The Gauls

For the British Isles, at least one faction present could be the Picts.

For Iberia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtiberians):
1) The Arevaci
2) The Belli
3) The Titti
4) The Lusones

Of course, this would mean too many factions probably, and needs to be narrowed down - and further researched. Those were just examples, more or less. Combining some of this with the current faction list...

1 - The Republic of Rome
2 - The Greek City States
3 - The Kingdom of Macedonia
4 - The Kingdom of Epirus
5 - The Seleucid Empire
6 - The Ptolemaic Empire
7 - The Kingdom of Pontus
8 - The Kingdom of Armenia
9 - The Kingdom of Parthia
10 - Carthage
11 - Numidia
12 - Etruria (Tyrrhēni - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_civilization)
13 - Illyria (? Not certain about this one, but it might be doable - it's a matter of locating the regions - and a correct number of them - properly)
14 - The Picts
15 - The Gauls
16 - The Belgae
17 - The Aquitani
18 - Germania
19 - The Averaci (Iberia)
20 - Dacia (Daci as a historical name, at least in the eyes of the Romans? Or what about the Getae?)
21 - Thrace (Thracia?)
22 - Scythia/Sarmatia
21 - The Kingdom of Phyrgia
22 - Galatia

I'll just have to get in touch with the EB team.

[Caius]

For Iberia

Celt-Iberians also.

[Ludens]

Hmm, there was never a tribe called Gauls. Gaul was a topographical term used by the Romans, but not by the Gauls themselves. Sorry for banging on about this, but misconceptions about the Celts (and other "barbarians") are a pet-peave of mine.

I could give you a number of suggestions but most of what I know comes from the EB forum anyway.

[christof139]

Hi,

For Iberia maybe just make 3 main tribal groups rather than picking certain particular very powerful tribes: 1) Lusatanians in the west; 2) Celtiberians in the north central more or less and northeast; 3) Iberians everywhere else. This would eliminate the problem of using a tribal name for a game province that actually occupies the area that was inhabitated by several tribes. Just an overall streamlining of the issue that is used in vanilla and most mods due to the quantity limitations set on factions.

Iberia with 3 factions would be OK, and what you have for Gaul is OK too, since that is how Caesar and the Romans and even the Gauls themselves viewed Gaul, that is as 3 main regions with each region occupied by many simialr cultural and linguistically related tribes.

Maybe have: 1) the Belgae; 2) the Aquitani; and then 3) as simply the Trans Alpine Gauls.

Then, throw in some independent Rebel Iberian and Gallic provinces scattered throughout each Iberian and Gallic faction area, and you will have a passable and farily accurate representation of the varied peoples inhabiting the faction areas during ancient times. Use tribal names for the province names, and those tribal names in both Iberia and Gaul are easy to find. Approximate boundaries are OK, since tribal boundaries were always fluctuating to some degree or other.

***Or, have only one faction each for Iberia and Gaul, such as the Iberians and Aquitani respectively, then make all the other provinces that are named after tribes Rebels.

Can't be too picky becuase of the game engine's limitations.

Chris

[gaiusjulii]

ok loving the idea of this, now i am gonna ask a totally stupid question, can you take the Bif imgaes from Ie for the buildings from RTW and just copy and paste them to use for building imgaes in the old MTW i know the engine totally different but are also the Images saved different now? I am a newbie to modding so please be gentle lol but i am happy to help i what way i can.

G

[Laman]

If the earliest start-date you want to use is close to the one of RTW, drop Etruria, controlled by Rome, if earlier so that they deserve to exist, east will look different and need other factions.

And with Phyrgia you mean Phrygia? Considering that Phrygia was crushed by the Cimmerians they doesn't really deserve a faction here. For faction based in Asia Minor in addition to Pontus and Galatia, use Pergamon and/or Cappadocia instead.

And Good Luck. Hope this turn into a good mod.

[Kaidonni]

Well, 295BC is my preferred start date, seeing as it is the year in which the Romans won a landmark victory against an alliance of Gauls, Samnites and Etruscans. An alternative start date is 280BC - or 279BC - centered around Pyrrhus of Epirus' 'victories' against the Romans, effectively destroying any plans he had to conquer Italy (he should have dumped the body of a man in a soldier's garb, with a briefcase containing documents of how he would not dare invade Italy... - just like the Allies did for the invasion of Sicily in 1943...well, who knows? It coulda worked out for Pyrrhus ).

There are two possible end dates - 79AD, when Vesuvius erupted and destroyed Pompeii, amongst other settlements - or 117AD, when the Roman Empire was at it's largest extent.

295BC-79AD gives us 374 turns.
280BC-79AD gives us 359 turns (358 if we used 279BC)
295BC-117AD gives us 412 turns
280BC-117AD gives us 397 turns (396 if we used 279BC)

EDIT: Right...I mean Phrygia - and by that, Pergamum. I got mixed up. LOL! I meant the Kingdom of Pergamum.

[Kaidonni]

I'm going to need a team for this mod to be able to get off the ground. I can list the features I have in mind so that it gives a clearer view of what is intended...

-21+ factions with historically accurate faction names, character names, units, starting positions, heroes and buildings.
-Brand new building and unit art unique to Culture.
-Culture replaces Religion, and the generic names (not historical names - but historical names will be used) for these cultures are 1) Roman, 2) Hellenic, 3) Barbarian, 4) Egyptian, 5) Eastern and 6) Carthaginian.
-Brand new map replacing the original map of MTW, covering the same area as RTW, but with the addition of the northern reaches from MTW. Historically accurate provinces, new map art (the map will be designed to look more colourful, to try to capture the atmosphere of the 3D map - while still being the glorious 2D map).
-Different campaign map piece designs - the fortification line of buildings will have designs more akin to Roman times than Medieval times, while the army pieces of Carthage will decidedly not look the same as those of the Romans or Seleucids.
-Era system to be used to emphasise evolution of the Roman military, and even to create entirely different experiences in each era (perhaps a Roman civil war era, in which the Romans not only have different soldiers, but are split into multiple factions, warring with one another, and only playable from that era - not in any other era).

Now the decision remains as to the time span. 295BC seems like a very good start date, but it's a split between either 79AD or 117AD as the end date...

[macsen rufus]

Hi Kaidonni,

I can help you out with some name files, already formatted for heroes.txt and names.txt

Using religions for cultures won't be too exact as the prod_files assign units and buildings by (MTW) culture - ie pagan, catholic, orthodox and muslim, rather than religion. Also I'm not sure if you can define a faction's religion as heretic, although you can have Jewish. I wouldn't distinguish between Carthaginian and Eastern as far as religion goes - the state religion of Carthage was effectively Canaanite (ie worship of Ba'al, Astarte etc etc). Egyptian would also be a bit dodgy in this era as the Ptolemies had Hellenized a lot (although they did adopt the Pharoanic habit of marrying their own sisters ) Still, I have 500 Egyptian names if you want them

[christof139]

Hi,

I don't know whether the infopic BIFs can be swapped as is, but I think I read somewhere here at the .org that they can, and the same also i think applies to the portraits.

Why not start in 300BC for a round figure and end in 100AD for another round figure, or 120AD??

If starting in 300BC then the Romans might have to beat the 3 Peoples' Alliance in the game!!!

Etruria was always rebelling against Rome, and a good number of Etruscans fought with Hannibal and I think there was an ANOTHER Etruscan rebellion when Hannibal and/or Mago was in Italy, and I believe also afterwards, even after Veii and all of Etrusca was conquered by the Romans they continued to rebel, and then there was the Social War in the 80'sBC ( offhand I believe it was the 80's) when nearly all of Italy rebelled against Rome. So, Etruia as a faction seems to be necessary for you, since they gave the Romans a lot of trouble for a long time.

When you make the Eras, it is possible to have the the Carthaginians adapt Hellenistic arms and equipment and organization to some degree at the same time as the Romans switch from the Phalnx style to the Camillian style (Manipular), and that would be the beginning of the second Era.

Prior to the 2nd Era, the Carthaginians would be more Phoenician in appearance and atmament and tactics, more Eastern/Assyrian like.

Chris

PS: Illyria would be good to have as they also gave the Romans a good amount of trouble, and their fleets raided shipping and coastlines quite profitably and the Romans had a hard time of it on both land and sea. About the time of the 2nd Punic War give or take, there was an Illyrian Quenn known as the Pirate Queen, and Illyria had a considerable fleet of smaller Hemiola type galleys, well over 200-hundred I do believe. On land the romans had to conduct quite a few major sieges and fought some good sized open field battles, and the Illyrians rebelled quite a few times before they became loyal citizens of Rome. Just food for thought.